


The End of Tomorrow

by 27dragons, tisfan



Series: Tales from the Communal Kitchen (the ex-assassins files) [16]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Bruce Banner/Natasha Romanov - Freeform, Canon-Typical Disregard for the Laws of Physics, Canon-Typical Unrealistic Dealing With Mental Issues, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kids, M/M, Mind Control, PLEASE READ THE TAGS AND THE NOTES, Parenthood, READ THE NOTES REALLY, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, background Jessica Jones/Steve Rogers, background OFC/OMC - Freeform, offscreen Tony Stark/Victor Von Doom, sort of, ug teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-09 23:41:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 65,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11679510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Time marches onward. Bucky and Tony have been married and taking care of their family for a couple of years when Jaime wakes from a nightmare that he swears is a foretelling of the future -- a future in which Tony turns against the Avengers and murders Bucky in cold blood. Negasonic’s precognition seems to hold up that theory, but before the Avengers can untangle this particularly sticky knot, Tony is kidnapped... by someone wearing suspiciously familiar armor.





	1. Signs and Portents

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is marked as Choose Not to Warn because:  
> \- There _is_ some Major Character Death (of more than one character), but keeping in mind that this is a time-travel plot, what happens in one timeline is not necessarily inevitable or permanent for the main timeline. If you die in the future to prevent what happened in the past, did you still die?  
>  \- There is also an offscreen but lengthy non-consensual relationship involving mind control with some extensive repercussions for the character involved. The relationship itself is not portrayed, but its implications are, and it is alluded to from time to time. Please keep your own comfort levels in mind, here. 
> 
> This is a very angsty fic, but we promise a happy ending, for the “main” timeline, at least. But if you would like some more specific details before deciding whether to read, please contact [27dragons](https://27dragons.tumblr.com/ask/) or [tisfan](https://tisfan.tumblr.com/ask/) and we'll be happy to help you out!

> _Lord Kiro: She's been wrong before. On my first birthday, she said that someday I would be killed by…shadows.  
>  Londo Mollari: Shadows?  
>  Lord Kiro: Doesn't exactly make sense, does it?_

_Jaime_

Sasha was touching his shoulder, fingers hot, too hot, and Jaime startled, swallowing a scream so large that it hurt his throat.

 _You were dreaming._ Even in the dim light, Jaime could read the graceful motions of his brother’s fingers. At four years old, Sasha hadn’t yet said a single word. ASL was his chosen method of communication.

“Thanks,” Jaime said, roughly. He didn’t like to lose control around his brother; frightening Sasha often had explosive consequences. “Go back to sleep, kid. I’m fine.”

Sasha gave him a Look that he’d perfected from his time spent with Steve and Jessica, the Your Captain is Not Impressed with Your Bullshit look. But he went back to his room, and that was all that was really important.

Jaime staggered to his feet to the bathroom. He didn’t want to look at himself in the mirror, ducked his face down. He splashed cold water on his skin, pressed a hand to his aching eyes. Rinsed his mouth; he could taste the blood.

Pain cramped through his stomach again, a twist of grief and anger for something that hadn’t happened.

 _Father! Father, no, don’t…_  

Jaime barely controlled the urge to scream, to reach out across time and space and stop it from happening. He pressed his fingers to the base of his skull; the connections ached, like he’d been plugged in too long and was missing the cold clarity of numbers and programming. He pulled his hand back, slightly damp. He was bleeding? Had he been jacked in in his _sleep_?

“JARVIS?” He kept his voice soft.

“Yes, young master? How might I help you, today?”

“Was I… in the system?”

“Not that I detected,” JARVIS said, the inflection of his voice a subtle reminder that Jaime had evaded JARVIS’ notice before. It was something of a rivalry between them, though a friendly one these days. JARVIS was still down in points, but he was able to catch Jaime approximately one out of three attempts now.

“Okay, okay,” Jaime said. His breathing was still too fast and his chest ached with grief. Father had died, died in his arms and...

He found himself unexpectedly on the stairs that led up to the penthouse, sobbing. He needed to check, needed to know for sure. JARVIS could have answered his questions, but he wanted the weight of Father’s hands on his shoulders, the comfort of those pale eyes, and…

… _blood on his hands. There was blood on his hands._

Jaime wanted to check _that_ , too.

He wiped his eyes roughly on his sleep-tee and climbed the stairs.

The door to their bedroom opened at his touch, as always, and he stopped in the doorway to look at his parents, tangled together in sleep. Two heartbeats, almost in sync. Two sets of lungs expanding and contracting, Dad’s a little faster than Father’s. They overlapped every six breaths.

He had expected to feel relief on seeing evidence that nothing had happened, that it had only been a dream, but it occurred to him, suddenly and with a force to rival a lightning strike, that the Jaime in the dream hadn’t been _himself_ , teetering on the edge of his teens, but a young man. He’d been _with_ the Avengers, not left behind at the Tower in the care of whichever Avenger had drawn the babysitting short straw that day.

He hadn’t dreamed something that had happened. He’d dreamed something that _would happen_.

And he knew, as sure as he knew anything, that it wasn’t just a dream. The numbers were there, clear and precise and pale green against his eyelids. This was something that was going to happen. It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a dream _at all_. This was a foretelling. His father’s death, the blood, and worst of all...

He started to cry, chest heaving and tears burning down his face. “Father?”

***

_Tony_

Tony snapped awake at the sound of Jaime’s voice; it didn’t happen as often as it used to, but every so often the dreams were still too much for him.

Sure enough, a lean silhouette hovered in the doorway, shadowed by the dim light behind him. “Kiddo?” Tony pushed up onto one elbow, prompting Bucky to grumble and pull Tony closer. “Y’okay?”

Jaime skittered around the end of the bed, eyes wary and motions low and tight, as if he were preparing to defend against an attack. “Father?” He reached out a hand as he approached Bucky’s side of the bed.

Bucky usually slept like a dead man, waking slow. He’d been particularly pleased with himself about that; waking in an instant and on high alert had been one of the more distasteful parts of being the Winter Soldier, and he was happy to have shed the habit. Which wasn’t to say he couldn’t be quick on his feet in need, but without the jolt of adrenaline from an emergency, Bucky needed a few moments to yawn and stretch and become coherent. Coffee helped. “Mmmmglfle?”

It was a little surprising that Jaime was reaching for Bucky rather than Tony -- usually Tony was the one who handled comfort in the face of panic. But it wouldn’t be the first time Bucky had been featured in one of Jaime’s nightmares, either. Tony nudged Bucky with one elbow. “Wake up, honey, Jaime needs you.”

“Don’t you touch him,” Jaime snarled. Even in the darkness, his face was a mask, filled with ice and rage.

Well that... That was different. Still caught in the dream, perhaps, and seeing someone else overlaid on Tony’s features. Also an impossible command, because Bucky clung to Tony in his sleep like a particularly touch-starved octopus.

At least Jaime’s waspish tone had served to bring Bucky awake. “Jaime?”

“We have to leave,” Jaime said, his voice rough and choked with tears. “We have to get away from here, have to get away from him. Come on, we have to go, we have to hide.” He was doing his best to yank Bucky off the bed, and while Jaime didn’t have anything close to the physical strength of his father or sister (or even Sasha, who was terrifyingly strong for a preschooler), he was still above average, and Bucky was still mostly asleep, so he wasn’t pulling back.

The two of them ended up on the floor in a heap. “Hey, hey, Jaime, what’s wrong? Bad dream? It’s okay. You’re here now, you’re safe.”

“It’s not me,” Jaime said, desperate. “It’s you. He’s going to kill _you_ , Father, we need to go.”

“Kiddo, you know when I threaten to kill your father for leaving his socks on the floor, that’s hyperbole, right?”

“I _saw_ it,” Jaime spat. “You’re gonna turn on us. He died in my arms. You killed him. You _will_.”

“Hey,” Tony said softly. “It’s just a dream, Jaime. I promise. Nothing could make me turn on you or your father. I _promise_.”

Bucky nodded, slow. “I’ve had those dreams, too, Mishka. Dreams where I’ve killed Tony, dreams where I watch and can do nothing, while --” JARVIS was slowly bringing up the lights, and Jaime was a tangle-haired wreck, his eyes darting from side to side, tracking attack vectors, escape routes.

“It’s not like that,” Jaime insisted. “Dreams don’t make my ‘ports bleed. It wasn’t just a dream.”

“Your dataports were _bleeding_? Christ, that’s bad. JARVIS, who’s on call down in medical?”

Jaime swiped a hand over the back of his neck and showed his fingers, defiantly, as if Tony had doubted him. The look on his face made Tony grateful that the kid didn’t sleep with a pistol anymore. Along his fingers was a smear of bright crimson.

“Okay, let’s--”

“Tony?” Helen’s voice overrode his, through JARVIS’ speakers. “JARVIS tells me you have a medical emergency?”

“I don’t know how urgent, but Jaime’s dataports are bleeding,” Tony said. “I’m sending him down with Bucky now.” Tony caught Bucky’s eye and raised his eyebrows. It was probably best to keep Jaime away from Tony for now, until he’d fully recovered from the throes of his dream. “You’ve got the most recent scans of them, right?”

“Yes, Tony,” Helen said, in her “reassuring the needlessly panicking parent” voice. “It’s probably just a growth spurt that’s pulled on the skin around them too hard, but I’ll take a look to be sure.”

Jaime calmed enough to let his father go. Tony could see Bucky suppressing a sigh as he climbed to his feet to get dressed, wash his face and rake his hair back with his fingers. The whole time, Jaime stayed between them, standing straight and rigid, his eyes never leaving Tony’s face. Guarding.

“You _will_ ,” Jaime said, like a prophecy of old. “And I’m going to stop you.”

They were out the door, leaving Tony on the bed, sad and slightly creeped out and above all, _tired_.

Tony’s cellphone rang. The picture showed Rikki with one arm around her girlfriend, flipping off the camera. Shit, had Jaime called Rikki and woken her up before he’d come up to the penthouse? Tony flicked the line open.

“Tony,” Rikki said, her voice breathless over the phone. Unlike the boys, Rikki called Tony by name, rather than Dad, like Jaime usually did, or the signed “Dad T” that Sasha used. But that made sense, given how much older than the boys she’d been when they’d come into Tony and Bucky’s lives. “I know it’s ungodly early, but… what’s happening? Elz had a fit, like rolling over, foaming at the mouth fit, and the first thing she said when she came out of it was to call you.”

“That’s... disheartening,” Tony said slowly. “Jaime had a nightmare that I killed Bucky, of all the awful things. He’s having trouble shaking it. I don’t suppose she told you any of what she actually saw?”

“She said that someone’s messing with the time-space continuum. Her visions are going nuts, trying to keep up with what’s going to happen and what’s _supposed_ to happen. Xavier’s got her, right now, trying to ease up on the pain it’s causing.”

“Ug, not again. I’ll call Richards in the morning and tell him to knock it off, whatever he’s doing.”

“Do you need me to come home?” Rikki asked. “I can get Kurt to give me a lift if it’s urgent, or I can take the Maz in the morning and be there before lunch.”

“It’s the middle of the night, don’t wake anyone up. It’s not that urgent. Let’s see how Jaime’s feeling in the morning and I’ll give you a call with an update,” Tony suggested.

“Okay,” Rikki said. She hesitated a moment, then added, “Be careful, okay? I don’t like this.”

“Yeah, me either. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of Bucky and the boys.”

“Yeah, but who’s gonna take care of _you_?” Rikki heaved a great sigh, like she was being forced to do something against her will, like take out the trash.

“Your dad, of course. Like always.”

***

_Bucky_

There was nothing that could be done about the smell. Medical would always smell like astringent and bleach, like cold metal and hot blood, like fear and terror and the choking force at the back of his throat. It didn’t matter how often Bucky had been here, no matter how sweet and kind and concerned Helen Cho was, even under her mask of sarcasm and good-natured aggravation with the sorts of shenanigans that super heroes got up to.

“So?”

Helen folded her hands together in front of her, fingers lacing uneasily. “If he were calmer, I’d suggest getting Mr. Stark to look at those ‘ports. There’s nothing wrong with his body that’s causing it. If I had to guess -- and computers are not what I usually doctor, even around here -- I’d say someone linked him into a system that wasn’t compatible. Like what happens when you try to plug an American device into a European power socket. There are scrapes, metal scrapes, against the inside of the port.”

“JARVIS,” Bucky said, “has Jaime left the building in the last three days that he was unaccompanied?”

“Master Jaime himself asked a similar question,” JARVIS reported. “I do not detect any abnormalities, but when we are speaking of Master Jaime, my oversight is compromised.”

“Yeah, he’s sneaky that way,” Bucky sighed. He thought they’d gotten over Jaime trying (and more often than not succeeding) to hack his way in and out of trouble. “Transfer the scans to Tony, and we’ll see what he thinks.”

“The tears themselves will heal, and that in short order,” Helen said, reassuring. “So long as whatever it was doesn’t happen again.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Bucky promised.

The door to Helen’s office was huge and thick; after several attempts, they’d managed to make her office sound-proofed against supersoldiers and spies and unless someone was making a very impolite and deliberate attempt, it had kept most medical confidences. Bucky sometimes wondered how Helen managed the door, as a normal, but she never complained. Or, at least, if she did, it was lost in the general litany against reckless superheros and risk-taking billionaires and irredeemable idiots that populated the Tower and ended up in her care.

“Come on, kid,” Bucky said, holding out his arm to his son. “Let’s get breakfast.”

Jaime rolled his eyes. “You just want coffee.”

“How well you know me,” Bucky said, fondly.

Bucky managed to get his son upstairs, and eating. They’d had a breakthrough with that a few months back that Bucky speculated was mostly the result of oncoming teenage hormones. He didn’t really care why, though; he was mostly just happy that Jaime actually _ate_. Maybe not quite enough for his metabolism, but they didn’t argue about it anymore and Bucky hadn’t caught him throwing food away in months.

With a second cup of coffee steaming at his elbow and a plate of toast and sausage half tucked away, Bucky started feeling a little more human. “Tell me about the dream,” he suggested. “Look, we both know deep inside that Tony’s never _willingly_ going to hurt me. So, you’re convinced there’s a danger, and I believe you, but that doesn’t mean _Tony’s_ going to betray us. So let’s get into the details of it. As Yoda says, always in motion, the future.”

Jaime frowned. “Um. I was older, I think. Fifteen, sixteen --”

“Well, that’s good, right? We have time to figure this out. Nothing’s going to happen today. Or tomorrow.”

“Dad must have made me a suit, I guess. I had these boots on, with repulsors.”

“Tony is _not_ making you a suit before you’re of legal age,” Bucky said, frowning. Despite the disapproval in his tone, he was a little relieved. Jaime was relaxing, without even being aware of it.

“There were beekeepers _everywhere_. I was in trouble, one of ‘em had this magnetic whip thing, pulled my gun away. Nets. Aunt Jess went down an’ someone was throwing ice water on her? I don’t remember. Uncle Steve was there, an’ Dad was in a new armor; I didn’t recognize it, not even from the stuff still in design. Really pretty, bulkier than the usual stuff, reinforced, with a starburst pattern on the face and chest. Black legs. Spiky shoulderpads.” Jaime took a long sip of juice. “Something… something hit him, in the back. He fell right out of the sky an’ you ran to him. He sat up an’ reached out to you...” Jaime’s hand moved, mimicking the gesture, the exact curve of Tony’s hand when he wanted to touch Bucky’s face, which somehow made it more horrible.

“An’ then he shot you, right in the head.” Jaime tapped just between his eyes, right where cranial protection was at its weakest. From that close, there would be no blocking or dodging, even for a supersoldier, and once the brain was smashed, it was over.

Bucky shook off that mental image and tried to focus on the rest of the Jaime’s description. “Well, see, there,” Bucky said. “Something hit him. You and I both know that mind-control is a thing. He was with us, until then. It’s nothing that _Tony_ did, not something Tony would do. And we’ve got time to figure it out.”

Jaime shrugged morosely. “I dunno, Father, it feels more immediate than that. Like there’s something I’m supposed to be doing _now_.”

“Well, if you figure it out, let me know. But we’re going to do it as a team, okay?” Bucky said. “You an’ me an’ your dad. We’re gonna figure this out. Together.”

“I’m not gonna let anyone hurt you,” Jaime said, and that was so sweet that Bucky felt tears prickle behind his lids.

“Stop tryin’ to bogart my job,” Bucky said. “I’m the dad here, it’s my job to protect _you_.”

“We’re _family_ ,” Jaime said. “We look out for each other.”

 


	2. The Face of the Enemy

> _William Edgars: The truth will be revealed in a couple of days. How many people can say that?  
>  Michael Garibaldi: I don't know. But I think the last guy got thirty pieces of silver for the same job._

_Tony_

Rikki showed up around lunch time, driving Tony’s Maserati. Elz was with her and the girls had an overnight bag. As per the usual, Rikki had waved a greeting to her step-father, hugged her dad, and then lavished attention on the boys, including bringing Jaime a new Lego set from which she had confiscated the directions. It was, honestly, the only way to challenge him with the sets.

Elz, on the other hand, who was not yet Tony’s daughter-in-law, but probably would be in the next year or so, hugged Tony so tight he had trouble breathing for a moment. Sometimes, he thought the two young women had made some sort of bargain that Elz would be the one to show all the physical affection toward Tony that Rikki couldn’t bring herself to.

“What are you doing here?” Bucky asked. “Not that I’m not happy to see you both.”

“I’m taking your turn on the baby-watch list,” Rikki said, picking up Zoya like the sturdy three-year old weighed nothing at all. The roster, which they kept maintained was because gaining a whole bunch of children-dependents was an unholy temptation for every AIM moron and Hydra goon and supervillain hench out there; the first year Bucky’s kids were in the Tower, practically every other time they were called to Assemble, someone decided to give the old breaking-into-the-Tower a try.

The first time, Natasha’d had to fight off a whole squad of Doombots by herself, while pregnant -- okay, well, not _technically_ by herself, since she’d gotten JARVIS to power up and pilot three other suits, and Jaime had come to the defense of the baby with a pair of handguns and his uncanny tactical genius. Still, it hadn’t been an ideal situation, so they’d set up the roster. At least one or two Avengers stayed behind now, every single time. With the addition of Jessica Jones, Rikki, Elz, Doreen (god save them all, the Squirrel Girl was an official Avenger now) and Clint’s young protege, Kate Bishop, there were extra Avengers around most of the time, though not all the extras were stationed at the Tower.

Tony sighed, expelling air so hard that it ruffled his hair. “That means we’re going to have an incident today,” he said. Just what they didn’t need. Hadn’t today been hard enough already? Elz was wrong sometimes -- precognition didn’t eliminate free will, and the future moved and shifted every single time someone changed their mind, and once in a while her showing up because of something she’d seen would alter the course simply because she’d shown up. But that was rare; most of the time, when she showed up, shit was going to hit the fucking fan.

But Tony was an Avenger, even if he was staring fifty in the face, and he knew damn well that the bad guys weren’t going to take a day off just because Tony was feeling put upon. In further fact, he rather thought that they put themselves to _extra_ effort whenever he was having a bad day.

With Rikki and Elz showing up at the Tower specifically to take Bucky’s place on the babysitting roster, that meant that the Winter Soldier was going to be key in the day’s avenging. So much fun. Not at all.

And on top of it all, being almost-but-not-quite-yet-related to a precog meant that Tony got to worry about shit before he even knew what shit he was worrying about. It was like the worst birthday present ever.

Tony’s mood was not at all aided by the fact that someone -- entirely undetected and leaving neither security feed nor reports -- had messed with _his son_ , goddammit. Helen was right. Someone had been fucking with Jaime’s ports. The interior left port had a hairline fracture, as if someone had shoved a connection in there that was the tiniest bit too large, had forced it in.

And yet they’d managed to do so without waking Jaime up, or Sasha, or alerting JARVIS. And the worst part was, because Jaime was still skittish and nervous around Tony, Tony couldn’t look to figure out what the hell they were trying to do.

What they had _succeeded_ in doing was pissing Tony off. Jaime was acting out all the classic behaviors of a child who’d been touched inappropriately by an adult they trusted, which was in a sense exactly what happened. Minus the trusting part, because Tony would be willing to bet a not-inconsiderable fortune that no one with permission to enter the Tower’s private levels would do such a thing, and Jaime didn’t trust anyone who didn’t have that permission, these days. Jaime’s ports were his, someone had violated the shit out of his bodily autonomy, and Tony was going to find out who that son of a bitch was and repulsor them right in the face.

Aaand there went the Avenger’s Assemble alert, right on time.

“One of these days you’ll show up more than five minutes before an alert and be forced to actually talk to us,” Tony told the girls. “What’ve we got, J?”

“Your second favorite villain, sir,” JARVIS said, “seems to have teamed up with your ex-boyfriend.”

“Oh, come on,” Tony complained, stepping into the suit as it manifested around him, “you are not supposed to be taking sass-lessons from my husband. I never dated Doom. Ever. He’s not my ex.”

“That’s certainly not the impression he gave at least year’s Symposium of Evil,” JARVIS said, and then neatly avoided Tony’s rejoinder by adding, “Situation report: M.O.D.O.K. seems to have a small army of Doombots with him, but no civilians yet under his control.”

“Well, that makes things easier,” Tony said. “Let’s go puncture us a balloon, shall we?”

***

_Bucky_

The Winter Soldier had a list of priorities for battles with M.O.D.O.K.; he whispered them to himself in the darkness of his mind before every mission:

_Protect Anthony Stark._  
_Preserve civilians.  
_ _Keep adequate distance from M.O.D.O.K._

That last one they’d found out the hard way. Unlike Jessica, who’d developed an immunity to M.O.D.O.K.’s mind-control abilities, the Winter Soldier was particularly susceptible. He fucking hated it, but he’d almost been lost to the damn flying chair’s mental control twice. The Avengers had been battling M.O.D.O.K. on and off for the last four years; the damn creature was slippery as hell and no matter what he was up to, M.O.D.O.K. always had multiple exit plans in place.

M.O.D.O.K. kept popping up like a creepy children’s jack-in-the-box; they never knew exactly how long the chilling music would play before he sprang out at them again, but it was inevitable. The Winter Soldier wondered if the Mechanized Organism could even be killed; they hadn’t managed it yet.

Capture of M.O.D.O.K. wasn’t entirely out of the question, but only if they had the right tools on hand. Xavier was still trying to create a way to dampen down M.O.D.O.K.’s telepathic control field. Admittedly, he wasn’t very motivated, since anything that could lock down M.O.D.O.K. could potentially be used against Xavier as well. If they could just get the wretched creature knocked out for a while, that would be _something_.

Bruce had managed to science up some of that orange goo they’d discovered a few years back; if they could just get M.O.D.O.K. into the containment box, they could keep him there indefinitely. The suspension goo didn’t knock supers out, but it would keep them in a state of partial animation for decades before the efficiency wore off.

Usually, the Winter Soldier was on civvie-watch during M.O.D.O.K. battles; getting the general population clear -- M.O.D.O.K.’s telepathic control had exceptionally limited range and it didn’t last once the bobble-head was clear of the area.

Today, however, M.O.D.O.K. didn’t have a civilian unit with him -- unusual, but at the same time, good. It meant the Winter Soldier didn’t have to be careful. He didn’t have to wrestle angry teachers and secretaries and social workers into submission without hurting them, dragging them away from M.O.D.O.K. and then getting them to run away once the control had worn off. (Civvies were so stupid about that sometimes, trying to sneak into an area and take god damn _selfies_ , for fuck’s sake.)

Iron Man was on tag and track detail; he and JARVIS had been working for a while on a system of checks and balances that made it impossible for M.O.D.O.K. to keep hold of Tony’s mind for very long. Whenever he did grab ahold of Tony, JARVIS would zip the suit out of range, ignoring all commands from Tony for the duration. That had included such orders as overriding safeties, moving closer to M.O.D.O.K., hurting his teammates (Steve had once taken a blast from the repulsors that had shot him most of a city block away and dumped a building on top of him) and one time, opening the damn armor mid-flight. Jessica had saved the day that time, catching Tony at the last moment and twisting around him to protect the fragile human body from the impact -- they’d wiped out half the third floor of the Baxter building, but no one had been hurt.

(Seriously, though, there was something with Jessica Jones and the Baxter Building that was just weird. Once on a dare, Bucky and Johnny Storm had searched the entire building top to bottom, looking for anything that might explain Jessica’s magnetic-like attraction to the place. They hadn’t found anything. Yet.)

“I hate robots,” Hawkeye said, firing explosive tips and magnetic locks into a careful pattern. The maglocks would pull two or three Doombots into a tight circle, and then the Winter Soldier could take them out with one micro grenade. The two of them often worked closely during take-down missions; either of them on their own could plow a great swath through enemies. Together, they were an unholy terror.

(Truth, that had happened once; they’d both done a superhero landing™ out of the Quinjet and landed back to back in the middle of a terrorist/hostage situation and the terrorists, as a single man, surrendered. It had been _awesome_ , no matter what Steve said.)

“Robots beats the shit out of bus drivers,” the Winter Soldier said, glaring across the battlefield. M.O.D.O.K. was at least a quarter of a mile away, chasing with determined doggedness after Iron Man’s retreating form. What was it with bad guys and their addiction to trying to kidnap Iron Man? It was enough to make a husband concerned.

“Four o’clock, Barnes-Stark,” Hawkeye said. “Pay attention.”

The Winter Soldier flattened his lips, but turned, guns reloaded and spitting Judas 2.0 bullets. He only had three magazines of them left -- they were tricky to make and he could churn through at least half-a-dozen magazines in a single dust up if he wasn’t careful -- but they did a number on metal bodies, ate through armor like it was cheese, and could take down a rogue powered person if he aimed carefully. Tony was still pissed that the Winter Soldier had taken to bullets originally produced by _Justin Hammer_ of all people, but had to admit they worked like a charm.

“Shut up and shoot faster,” the Winter Soldier snapped back, after blasting the cluster of Doombots to his right.

“What’s your count?”

“We are not doing the Legolas-Gimli shit again, Barton, I swear, we ain’t.” Bucky fell out of his headspace for just a few seconds, and…

His attention was caught by a figure on the battlefield that had no reason to be there, a slender form, crouched low near one of the buildings that was currently on fire (evacuated, Black Widow had made sure of that.) The unknown person was clad in dark armor, black with red accents. Familiar red. Hot rod red. Bucky’s eyes narrowed.

“Hawkeye, eleven o’clock, under the collapsed wall,” Bucky said, “tell me what you see.”

“We got us a bogey on the field, Cap,” Hawkeye reported after only a half-second’s delay. “Unknown individual in armor, packing hella heavy. He’s got a rack of missiles that’d give JARVIS a bad case of penis-envy.”

“I _beg_ your pardon,” JARVIS came over the comms, sounding insulted.

There was something weirdly familiar about the unknown person, Bucky couldn’t quite put his finger on it. The way the person moved -- decidedly organic, even if they were enclosed in armor that was _remarkably similar to the Iron Man armor_.

“Tony, babe,” Bucky said into his comms. “He’s got your tech, whoever he is. It’s…”

Whatever it was it would have to wait. The Iron Imitator took two running steps and launched, repulsors going with a familiar whine. God, they were _fast_ , faster than Tony. The armor was sleek and graceful, gleaming black and red like a Sith version of Tony’s suit. They zipped across the battlefield like a fallen angel, then caught up with Tony and matched him exactly, flying in tandem.

“Who the hell are you?” Tony’s voice, over the Iron Man speakers, was loud, mechanical, and even through that filter, shocked.

The Imitator didn’t say anything, just held up one hand, palm out.

“Watch it!”

Bucky was off and running flat out, covering half the field of combat in moments, abandoning his position at Hawkeye’s side.

The Imitator’s palm emitted a dull _whump_ noise, and a shockwave blasted Iron Man, knocking him head over teakettle, tumbling into freefall. The black and red armor swooped down and caught Tony before he’d fallen more than fifty feet, cradled him to the armor’s chest like a prince who’d found himself a princess.

“Jones!” Bucky roared. There was no way he was going to get there in time (in time for what, he didn’t even want to know).

“On it!”

Jessica’s silver and purple armor was a blur to Bucky’s left as she twisted through an updraft, catching warm air and rising. She wasn’t as fast as Tony, but maybe she could cover the --

For a long instant, the black and red figure hovered there, holding Tony, the helmeted head turned in Bucky’s direction, watching…

The figure jerked upward and Bucky twisted to track, drawing his rifle -- he had three original Judas rounds in that, he could bring that fucker down in a tangle of steel and blood. Above his head opened a swirling vortex of shadow and terror with a glimpse of light in the center, like a galaxy was being sucked down the drain.

Bucky dropped to one knee, lined up the shot. The black and red armored figure sped toward the vortex, Tony still clasped tight in their arms. Bucky took three deep breaths, calming himself, listening to the silence between his heartbeats. He ghosted his finger over the trigger, waited.

The figure put on a burst of speed and flew toward the whatever it was. Bucky fired.

The vortex closed the instant before his round hit its mark.

There was no trace of the figure. No trace of swirling galaxies.

No trace of Tony.

Bucky threw back his head and screamed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The orange goo was first mentioned in Chapter 12 of [What Gets You Through the Night](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9185564/), where it is used to keep powered/enhanced individuals in a state of suspended animation.


	3. And All My Dreams Torn Asunder

> _Delenn - The flame reminds us of the piece of those stars that live inside us. A spark that tells us: you should know better. The flame also reminds us that life is precious, as each flame is unique. When it goes out, it's gone forever, and there will never be another quite like it. So many candles will go out tonight. I wonder some days if we can see anything at all._

_Ellie_

#adventuresinbabysitting

Ellie sat, cross-legged, on the floor, leaning against the sofa, and tried to remember to keep her eyes open. She was _exhausted._ #sleeplessinseattle

The kids were playing, and the flicker she looked into the future showed peace and quiet -- well, as quiet as a three-year-old, a preschooler, and a mentally scarred pre-teen ever could be. Sasha and Zoya were building towers out of blocks and Jaime was knocking them over because Jaime was a brat sometimes. #funwithsiblings #supersoldiersiblings

Usually, when Ellie used her precog, it was deliberate. She allowed her inner eye to reach out, to view the possibilities. She explained it as looking along the branch of a tree; there were paths and forks all down the length, but for the most part, the present blended seamlessly into the future. Because Ellie could see a little further down the road than most, the way a grandmaster chess player could predict the entire game from a few moves, she could sometimes dodge minor events, change where she put her feet to miss a bump entirely; with a little more concentration, she could select a turn of the path for herself. With great effort, she could change major happenings, but she’d found out the hard way that the future was resistant to meddling; so many people’s choices affected an event that tugging everything in one direction required a lot of effort, and often involved unintended consequences.

But most of the time, she kept her inner eye closed. Viewing the future had the drawback of missing the present. She indulged, from time to time, but mostly, she looked ahead to stay in practice, or to fight. She was brilliant at fighting; it was very hard to hit someone who always saw you coming.

Entirely out of her control was the sight smacking her in the head whenever something big was happening. #nothelping The first time she’d looked at Rikki Barnes, for instance. Thank God Rikki had been asleep when it happened, because Ellie had taken one look at Rikki’s lovely face and nearly creamed her pants, the future being so eager to show itself to her that she’d gotten several very _personal_ future flashes. #tooyoungforthisshow She’d been torn entirely out of the present and left gasping with its impact. At least that one had been relatively pleasant.

Rikki-now was taking swigs out of a 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew and listening with half an ear to the Avengers comm chatter. She poked at her phone, playing some sparkly version of BubblePop. #thatsmygirl

The first dreams had rocked her a few hours before dawn when she’d come awake, screaming and reaching for a future which was fading and twisting. Professor Xavier had to be summoned, had to reach into her brain and turn off her inner eye, a dark cloth drawn over her abilities that had kept her screaming. Being struck blind was terrifying, and it had been quite a while before she was coherent enough to understand what was happening.

Her head _still_ hurt.

And she still didn’t understand. The future was never so nebulous. Foggy and unstable, in a way she’d never seen before. As far as they could tell, her eye had opened at the exact same time Jaime had woken up from a terrible nightmare. That… probably wasn’t coincidence, although they couldn’t rule it out entirely. #occamsrazordoesntalwayscutit

“How’s it going?” Ellie asked, directing the question to Rikki. There was a storm brewing. The future was even more cloudy than usual, a narrow beam of light running through a smoke-filled room. Ellie cupped her hands around her elbows, wishing for once that precog wasn’t such a rare gift.

Wishing, sometimes, that she’d never been graced with it.

Oracles went insane; history was rife with examples.

She closed the eye again. Her head hurt. Throbbed and ached. She groaned, rubbing at her temples.

“It’s M.O.D.O.K.,” Rikki said. “Always exciting. He’s chasing Tony around.”

Jaime looked up from where he’d just knocked over Sasha’s block tower again by “accidentally” walking too hard across the floor. #bratforsalecheap

Rikki ran a hand lightly over Ellie’s shaved scalp, then dug her strong thumbs into Ellie’s neck and shoulders, eliciting a painful, sensual moan. “You are a minor miracle,” Ellie said, leaning back into Rikki’s skilled hands.

“And you are a kitten,” Rikki said. Ellie could hear the smug grin on her girlfriend’s lips as Ellie slowly melted into a puddle. She closed the eye again; the vagueness was making her headache worse.

“We got us a bogey on the field, Cap,” Hawkeye’s voice echoed from the earpiece Rikki wore, and Ellie’s inner eye opened again, wide and searching. She squinted, stretching, reaching for it. What--

“Oh, fuck,” she muttered, peering. “Rikki, get him out of there! _Get them out_!” She closed her hands over the future line, dragged it back, trying to get a better look, and a black and red armor-clad figure closed his arms around the falling Iron Man armor. The figure was framed in symbolism, flames and storm, and then swept upward into a vortex of swirling colors and dancing lights…

The landscape of the future inside her head locked. Locked and _cracked_ like a shattered mirror.

Stark was gone. He was _gone_ , she was too late.

The Winter Soldier was screaming over the comms, loud enough that all three of his children were riveted in abject horror. Sasha burst into distressed flames.

The future.

Oh, god, the _future._

The future was locked in place. Broken. There were no paths at all, no branches. There was nothing but a single thread of black that lead into impenetrable darkness.

For a single second, she glimpsed… a light? An angelic figure with great wings of orange flame stretched out and reached for her. _Sister, help us, please._

Ellie extended a hand, intent on demanding answers, at least-- And everything faded.

Ellie found herself clutched tight to Rikki’s torso while the Barnes children exchanged worried looks. Jaime was soothing Sasha as best he could, getting the burning boy under control, his face streaked with tears.

Ellie’s gaze was drawn to the smoldering Sasha. The boy hitched a sob, then looked up at her, catching Ellie’s gaze, then inexplicably nodded.

***

_Jaime_

His Dad didn’t come home.

His Dad _wasn’t coming_ home.

And that would have been bad enough; despite the nightmare, he loved Tony, looked up to him, enjoyed spending time with someone whose mind worked in wondrous ways and who actually challenged him on a regular basis. Tony was comfort and encouragement and wit and banter and occasionally being a complete idiot in the best ways.

There was guilt there, too, because a tiny part of Jaime was relieved. If Tony was gone, there would be no need to worry about the dreams. Which twisted Jaime into a terrible knot.

His Dad wasn’t coming home, and that was terrible for all kinds of reasons.

His Father didn’t come home, either. And that might be worse.

The Winter Soldier had returned to the tower. Removed his gear. Showered. Ate. Went to medical. Didn’t talk. Didn’t look at his children. Didn’t look at anyone. His gaze was focused, his attitude attentive. If someone put a question directly to him, the Winter Soldier gave the shortest answer possible, sometimes flicked his eyes in the direction of the person speaking.

Father hadn’t come home.

Rikki had her hands full with a spontaneously combusting brother; Sasha would not relax, and they’d had to change the chem-cartridges in his wrist bands three times that first day alone. Elz was in no shape to do anything; she’d fallen to pieces the instant Dad went through the portal and didn’t reappear.

No one had time for a guilt-stricken, grieving, twelve-year-old.

Jaime took refuge down in Dad’s workshop.

Under normal circumstances, he wasn’t allowed in there unless he had a specific project, or if Dad was already there and willing to allow observers. Dad didn’t, always. Sometimes he fell into a project hard enough that he even locked Father out of the workshop, in order to think better.

But Dad wasn’t coming home.

And JARVIS opened the door for Jaime without a word.

“JARVIS,” Jaime said, he didn’t even know how many hours he’d just been sitting there in Dad’s chair, staring at the workstation without really seeing any of it. “Run facial recognition, globally. Start at the time the portal closed. Traffic cameras, security cameras. Tag social media networks and cell phone signals.”

Jaime reached into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out his uplink cable. “I’m going in, I’ll help you sort.”

“Yes, Young Master Barnes,” JARVIS said. “I am awaiting your direction.”

Jaime plugged himself in, letting the soothing feel of filled ports wash over him. When Hydra had first installed the data ports, Jaime had hated them. Eventually, one of the scientists had linked the ports directly to his body’s production of serotonin. His stomach tightened as his body flooded with hormones. He closed his eyes, letting the wash carry away his grief and fear, then slid the needle into JARVIS’s access on Dad’s workstation.

Golden light filled his mind and Jaime became one with the information network.

***

_Steve_

It was like living in a nightmare.

Steve had lost men before. Hell, he’d lost _Bucky_ , or thought he had, and that had hurt like a fatal wound, a gush of blood that couldn’t be staunched and left him feeling cold and distant -- and then incandescently searing with anger. He’d let that anger carry him through that final battle with Schmidt.

Losing Tony was nearly as bad.

Worse, because Tony wasn’t dead, probably; they’d all seen the portal. He’d been abducted. He was somewhere -- and so far, they hadn’t been able to figure out where -- enduring God only knew what at the hands of God only knew whom.

Worse, because they didn’t know who had taken him. There was no one to interrogate for information, no villain to crush in revenge. Shock was giving way to anger, but there was no one to take it out on.

Worse, because the whole team was affected, and Bucky... Bucky wasn’t just dealing poorly. Bucky wasn’t dealing with it _at all_. He’d retreated into the Winter Soldier and no one -- not Steve or Nat or even the kids -- had been able to shake him out of it.

Steve felt like he’d lost two friends, not just one. “I don’t know how to reach him,” he told Jess, despairing.

Jess sighed. Of them all, she was probably the least affected -- her relationship with Tony was closer to “colleagues” than “friends”, though it was better than it had been a few years ago. Despite that, she was working every contact she had, calling in favors left and right. So far, no luck. “Might not be able to get through at all, just yet,” she told Steve sympathetically. “He was a little like this when the two of us had to go after you. No reasoning with him, and no inclination to wait, except that he doesn’t have a direction to go yet. Only thing we can do is back his play when he makes it. At least he’s keeping himself fighting fit. It goes on for a while, we might have to take steps, but for now... Ain’t like anyone else in this place has better coping mechanisms.”

Steve growled and pulled her close, holding her punishingly tight and burying his face in her hair. “I hate feeling helpless,” he complained.

“I know, cowboy,” she said. “I know. We’ll find him yet, even if we have to rip the world apart piece by piece.”

Steve looked at her, surprised by her vehemence. She scowled at him. “He’s an Avenger,” she said, as if that explained everything. Perhaps it did.

 


	4. Falling Toward Apotheosis

> _Lorien: You heard?_  
>  _John Sheridan: I heard._  
>  _Lorien: They need to believe._  
>  _Sheridan: Not in me._  
>  _Lorien: You can't save them all._  
>  _Sheridan: I'll try._  
>  _Lorien: You'll fail._  
>  _Sheridan: We'll see._

_Tony_

The instant the HUD went dark, Tony knew he was in trouble. The armor was shielded from standard EMPs; whoever this guy was, he’d not only stolen Tony’s armor designs, but found ways around his best and newest protective measures. This was going to be a bitch.

Assuming, of course, he survived the fall. “JARVIS, come on, buddy!” Reboot should have gotten underway within 1.3 seconds after the EMP event; what the hell was taking it so long?

“Oof!” Tony grunted as something -- someone -- collided with him. Maybe Jessica had caught him? But no: the little that Tony could see out of the unresponsive eyeslits was black armor chased with red. Damn it.

And they had him in a goddamned bridal carry. Tony rolled his eyes. “You’re not Doom, are you?” he asked. “Little short for Doom, but maybe the usual armor has lifts, I dunno.”

His kidnapper didn’t respond.

“You know my husband is lining up a shot right this second to rip you to shreds, right?” Tony didn’t need to see Bucky to know that was true. Bucky had a sixth sense about Tony’s position in combat and absolutely no sense of humor about anyone or anything who interfered with Tony’s part of the plan.

“I know,” the kidnapper said, his voice modulated by the armor, but he sounded almost proud. “Judas rounds, the first generation. The suit can take it, don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried about _you_ , asshole,” Tony growled. Moving in the armor was damned difficult when there wasn’t any power -- it was heavy as hell and the servos and gears locked into place as soon as power dropped -- but Tony started struggling anyway. He’d take his chances with the fall. What the hell, it always worked out for Clint.

“Boss,” another voice, said. “I’ve got a lock on the portal, three o’clock. It’s gonna take you right through Winter Soldier’s line of fire.”

“Shut up, Friday, I got it,” the suit said.

“You’re the boss,” the female voice snapped back.

Friday? As in _Rikki_ ’s Friday? The AI that Tony had built to keep his stepdaughter safe? It was almost enough of a shock to push him past the panic that the word “portal” had caused. “Friday? What the hell, this guy isn’t your boss. How the hell did he subvert your programming?” He started pushing harder, trying to make the kidnapper let him go, but his grip was like iron.

“I see it, I see it. Jesus, you’re pushy,” the suit said. “Hold on, Tony, this is a bit of a bump. _Sorry_.”

A flicker of blue and then black and a color that Tony was pretty sure didn’t actually exist, and _oh god not a fucking portal_ Tony was going to throw up in his helmet--

Blue sky and an unfamiliar landscape, some kind of ruins. Modern buildings, but crumbling and dark and-- Crap, they were falling again. “Any time now, JARVIS!”

Tony’s kidnapper hit the ground and rolled, letting loose his hold on Tony as they crashed into the remains of a building. “Shit, shit, _shit_.” He extended a hand to Tony’s chest and something came out of his palm, a cable with some sort of clawed attachment, which bit into the neck joint. “Friday, crack him and get him out of there.”

Tony had been kidnapped more than was reasonable for any single person, really. The first rule of being kidnapped was that whatever your kidnapper wanted to happen was something you _didn’t_ want to happen. “Belay that, Friday!” Tony snapped. “Override Alpha-Echo-Sierra-ten-three-one-seven!”

Friday ignored him. They’d stolen his armor, circumvented his protective measures, taken him through a portal, and _subverted his AI_.

A woman approached out of the ruins, carrying a bag over one shoulder. She was impossibly smooth, hairless except for a crowning glory of red and black that was braided in a thick coil over her shoulder.

“Hey boss,” she said, and she sounded _exactly_ , eerily, like Friday. “I’ve got your clothes.”

“All right,” the kidnapper said as Tony’s armor fell to pieces on the ground. “This is going to be the tricky bit. Shit… they were fighting M.O.D.O.K., so I think we’re safe enough. I saw _him_ , Friday, for a few seconds. God. He was right there in front of me. I almost… I wanted to bring him with us, but…”

“You know that’s not the plan,” Friday the woman said. She shook out a robe and held it out.

Tony eyed her -- she wasn’t big; he might be able to take her down before the guy in the armor could react. But then what?

The guy in the red and black armor turned to face Tony. “Give me three minutes, and I promise I’ll explain everything.”

“How about no?” Tony snapped. “They’re going to come looking for me, and when they find me, I can promise you’ll be in a world of hurt. So why don’t you just take me back now.”

The guy arched his back and screamed like someone was peeling his skin off. Which was, actually, sort of what happened: the armor cracked open into a thousand shards of black and red and an undercoat of silver, hovered around the man for a few seconds and then snapped into his skin. Blood flowed, gushed for just a second, then stopped and he healed up with a flicker of red and orange over his skin, reminding Tony of Pepper’s skin when she’d been injected with Extremis.

“What the fuck.”

The guy fell to his knees, naked as the day he was born, panting. “Shit, we _really_ need to work on that, Friday,” he said. Slowly, shaking, he stood up and let Friday dress him in the bathrobe. He had dark hair, cut ragged around his face, and when he looked up at Tony, he had a familiar face and one heartbreakingly familiar eye, a stormcloud gray. The other was missing, the spot covered with a brutal scar that spread across the left side of his face.

“Hey, Dad,” Jaime Barnes said. “It’s good to see you again.”

“What the _fuck_?”

“Boss, you just saw him this morning,” Friday said, putting her hands on her hips.

The man turned around, giving Tony his back, but before Tony could do anything, he flipped up his long hair and revealed two ports at the base of his skull, old now, corroded in spots, but familiar. “It really is me,” Jaime said. “And I’m _really_ sorry about this.”

“Are you certain that’s safe, Boss?” Friday asked. “He could --”

“I’m telling you, I _saw_ the Winter Soldier on the field. It hasn’t happened yet. We beat it. We really got him, this time. Where’s Sav?”

“He went below. The effort took a lot energy to maintain. He needs to eat. ”

The implications of Jaime’s words impacted with all the force of a Jericho missile. “What the hell happened to the Winter Soldier?”

Jaime turned, slowly, his eye brimming with tears. “I told you I would stop it,” he said. “I promised that I would. You killed him.”

“No.” No, that wasn’t possible, Tony could _never_ hurt Bucky.

“I’m afraid that it is true,” Friday said. “I have the footage in my archive. Would you care to see it?”

“No, _god_ , Friday,” Jaime snapped, putting his hand over her eyes. “Don’t you dare project that to him, are you insane?”

“My sanity has never been in question, Boss.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Jaime said. “Look, it’s hard to explain, and we need to get underground soon.”

Tony took another look around at the ruined city and knew he wasn’t going to like the answer to the question he had to ask. “Where are we? And... when?”

Jaime pointed behind them. “That’s where I picked you up,” he said, indicating a patch of scraggly woods. “And this is… well, used to be… New York City. It’s… um… shit, what’s the calendar year, Friday?”

“2045, Boss. The ninth of August, in fact.”

The world tipped and rocked. “I’m going to need a full debrief,” Tony said, trying for stern but suspecting it came out wavery. “But first I think I might faint for a little while. Someone catch me.” And then everything went dark.

***

_Zoya_

Her hands were shaking.

A good medic’s hands never shook.

Zinobiya Maria Romanov-Banner counted her names, reminding herself just who the hell she was.

She rearranged her tools on the rolling cart and peeked into the med-bay at her patient. Time-shock was a very serious illness; they’d discovered that the hard way when Sav had first developed his abilities.

“Regimes fall every day,” she said, mouthing words her mother had once said. “I tend not to weep over that.” She sighed. It still didn’t feel right. Unlike Jaime, she’d grown up in this one, and she wasn’t sure that she was ready. Didn’t matter. He was here, and what would happen now, she couldn’t predict. In the meanwhile, she had a patient to tend to.

She pushed the cart into med-bay, not bothering to be quiet, although she could move with utmost silence if she wished it. But she had no desire to startle this man; he was dangerous in a way that she couldn’t give voice to.

“Mr. Stark?”

He was awake, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t look over at her, but he managed a soft grunt of acknowledgement.

“Is it… is it all right if I examine you? I’m a doctor. Well, sort of. A medic, anyway. My father taught me everything I know.”

He did look at her then, a roll of the head and a slow, appraising look from eyes that should have been familiar but somehow weren’t. “Should I ask who you are, or is that going to make me sick again?”

“You’ll be over the time-shock in a few hours,” she said, “if past events can predict future trends. And I already gave you something for the displacement sickness. That's what messes with your inner ear. The whole universe moved when you weren't on it. Tends to throw people for a loop. The bigger the jump, the more severe the effects. But the rest? That's simple shock and mental strain.” Her hands were shaking again, dammit. “And I don’t know. I’m terrified of the answer, Mr. Stark. Sav was cutting it so fine and if you’re here, now. This is the only world I’ve ever known. I was a _baby_ when everything changed. I never knew the world Jaime’s trying to recover.” She glanced at him; the pieces didn’t line up in her mind. She knew who he was, but… she’d never seen him before. Not like this.

“Did… Did I even exist? Did Jaime unmake me by taking you too soon?”

The dark eyes sharpened, snapping back to her face and examining it more closely. “...Zoya?”

Something broke in her chest and she couldn’t examine it close enough to know if it was relief or horror, and then she buried her face in her hands and started to cry, great aching, tearing sobs. “Oh, thank God. Thank God.”

The cot creaked and then there were hands on her shoulders, tentative but warm. “Hey, it’s... it’s okay, you’re okay.”

She sniffled, wiping at her eyes. “Sorry, sorry, I shouldn’t get all emotional, it’s just hormones,” she said. “Well, it’s not. It’s a legitimate worry. We’ve tried to pull you through time on four separate occasions now, and we haven’t been able to get the timing right. Sav’s memory is all jumbled and I wasn’t born when they first arrived, so it was possible that to get you before… well, we’ve gotten you a few times _after_ , but that didn’t work out so well.”

Strange, having Tony touching her. It was… nice. She missed her own father, _god_ , she missed him so much, but this was nice. “I’m sorry. I’m a watering pot. Let me check you over, make sure there’s... Well, I’ll feel better if I know the --” She cut herself off again. “Roll over, please, let me see your spine, okay?”

“Making sure I’m not mind-controlled already,” Tony translated. “Yeah, okay, I’d want to check that, too.” He dragged his shirt up over his head and flopped down on his stomach.

“Wow,” she said, running one hand down his spine. “The last couple years were rough on you, I guess. I mean, I take care of the now-you -- time travel is grammatically the _worst_ \-- and I’m not used to you having so few scars.”

He didn’t move for a moment, and then he twisted his neck around to look at her over his shoulder. “I’m still _alive_? For god’s sake, _why_?”

“You’re clear. There’s no amplifier implant,” she said, pressing the third and fifth vertebrae where the device had been fitted. “And Jaime said that his father was still alive when he took you. So. We succeeded.” She tipped back to look at him. “This was _your_ idea, Tony. We’re going to fix the world.”

“Are we.” It came out flat, almost angry. “And is fixing it going to-- Well. Time travel; it might.” He sat up and looked at her again. “Who was it? Who hooked me? Jaime -- _my_ Jaime, the kid -- had a dream. He... he _knew_ it was coming, but he didn’t say...”

Zoya made a grumbling sound in her throat. “Jaime stuck that in _himself_ , the lovely idiot. He jacked into his own brain that morning. To leave a message, so they wouldn’t worry. I don’t see why a paper note wouldn’t have done as well, but perhaps he didn’t think he’d believe that. Damn fool, he could have fried his own brain and then where would we be?” She heaved a sigh. “It was M.O.D.O.K. He’d been trying for years to get close enough to you, as I understand it. You were the strongest Avenger that was susceptible to the chip. But his range was so limited. He built an amplifier. With the chip, he could control you from anywhere on the planet, from as far away as the moon.”

Tony grimaced. “Evil Balloony was in my head? Or. Will be. Or...”

“Well, if we can fix it, he won’t have been,” Zoya said, exasperated. “Time-travel verbs. _Ug_.”

“Someone needs to invent a specific set of tenses for time travel, if that’s going to be a thing,” Tony said.

Zoya felt her lips twist up into that smile that always gave the older members of their habble pause. Uncle Steve called it the Stark Signature Smirk, and it was a favorite topic of pointless discussion among the elders, whether it was genetic or something she’d imprinted as a baby, before he’d been taken. “I agree.”

Tony smiled back at her, but only a little. He pulled his shirt back on and then leaned on his hands. “Well, doc, do I pass?”

“Well, you don’t have the link-up, so that’s good. Not that he’d be able to control you now, of course. But the older ones of you that we brought -- Jaime kept trying, I thought he was going to kill himself, trying to get early enough. They all kinda went crazy when they came here, into a space where M.O.D.O.K. doesn’t exist anymore.”

Tony let out a heavy breath. “He’s gone, then. That’s... good.”

“Jaime and Sav killed him about a year ago,” she said. “Jaime’s like M.O.D.O.K., you know. He can figure odds. With Sanction and Warhead backing them up, they made a raid on Doomsville and managed to take him out. And you killed Von Doom right afterward, as soon as M.O.D.O.K. wasn’t holding your leash.”  

Tony’s expression went very, very still. “Did I, now.” He closed his eyes. “I’m afraid to ask, but I might as well get it out of the way. Who else did I... No. Who’s left? Is it just me and you kids, or...”

Zoya sighed. “We lost my mother and Jaime’s dad and Uncle Clint in the first battle, when you were taken. Uncle Steve and Aunt Jess managed to get back to the Tower and with JARVIS’s help, got all the kids away.” She closed her eyes, trying to get all the history in the right order; they were still just stories to her, she didn’t remember any of it. She went to sleep each night looking at her mother’s picture, but she couldn’t actually remember Natasha at all. Aunt Jess had been the closest thing to a mother she’d ever had.

“James Rhodes and his wife, Pepper, are in charge of the habble in D.C. He’s been ill recently with pneumonia, but he’s on the mend, according to our last contact. Thor was recalled to Asgard; there was a civil war there some years ago, when his brother returned. Sam Wilson was lost six years ago. He was making a medical run with my dad -- Bruce Banner, you know, not… you. My real dad. Anyway, they fell into a trap. Dad’s probably still alive, but we can’t get to him.” She didn’t want to say it, but… “There was a containment capsule , that you and Charles Xavier developed to hold M.O.D.O.K., before you were turned. They locked Dad into it and threw it in the Marianas Trench.”

“Jesus, Bruce...” Tony’s lips thinned. “I feel like I should apologize or... something.”

Zoya jerked her head up and down in a nod of sorts. “There was a time when I wanted to kill you myself,” she said.

“I wouldn’t have blamed you. I’m... a little surprised Rikki let me live as it is. She didn’t like me very much _before_.”

Zoya blinked, surprised. “Sanction? You’re kidding, right? She was your biggest advocate when Jaime brought you back here. Even Jaime was saying you needed to go on trial, needed to… “ She shook her head. “I mean, she always stuck up for me, when the others… I’m a _Stark_ , and everyone knew it. People treated me like I was _poison_ , growing up.”   

Tony’s eyes were wide and pained. “I... I’m sorry. I didn’t want-- Maybe it’s a curse or something, that Starks are destined to fuck over their kids.”

Zoya shuddered. “Well, I _hope_ not.” She touched her stomach again. “Not that this version of me will ever know. If we fix it… if we change everything, he won’t ever be born.”

“You’re not a Stark; Natasha and Bruce are your parents. You’re pregnant?”

“You can’t tell him,” Zoya said, blinking rapidly. God _damn_ it. She needed to not be this way. “You can’t tell Jaime, he doesn’t know. I don’t want him to have to pick between the world and one child. M.O.D.O.K. was… not kind to the world. It has to be saved, no matter the... personal cost.”

Tony’s eyes flicked down to look at her stomach, and then back up to her face. “It’s Jaime’s?”

She nodded, pushing the heels of her hands under her eyes to stave off the tears, _again_. “We were going to be married,” she said, “until you -- _our_ you -- came back and had a plan. A plan to save the world. Then Jaime got a little… strange. The Extremis... He didn’t want to take the risk, but we still mess around sometimes. It’s hard not to, there’s… Sanction said there’s something about Starks and Barnes, that we can’t stay away from each other.”

“Highly compatible pheromones,” Tony said, nodding sagely. “Okay. Okay, I can cope with this, it’s almost like that alternate dimension that one time but probably without the weird... Anyway. Okay.” He held up a hand, flat. It shook, but not violently. “I can work with that.” He slid off the cot, stretched, and then smiled grimly at her. “Take me to your leader.”

 


	5. A Day in the Strife

> _Ivanova: If I live through this job without_ completely _losing my mind, it will be a miracle of biblical proportions!  
>  David Corwin: Well, there goes _ my _faith in the Almighty._

_Rikki - 2019_

Rikki was accustomed to the halls and rooms of the School’s mansion. She was well-known to the students there, even though she wasn’t a mutant. Not by the strict definitions; mutants developed their abilities through their own evolution. The best parts of Rikki, as some wise-ass put it once, came out of a bottle. She thought that particular wise-ass might have been her step-father, to be honest.

But Rikki spent more time at the School than the Tower, these days, and it was no mystery as to why. Usually, she would stop in the halls and chat with passersby; most of the older kids and several of the teaches knew her well enough to exchange words. Logan probably would have dragged her into the kitchen for a glass of milk -- god only knew why, but it seemed to be a thing he did; his rough-and-tumble exterior was a front for a truly ridiculous man -- except for the dark shadow behind her shoulder.

There were people in these halls who had faced down Magneto, had dealt with the illicit military branch controlled by Striker. But with one look at Sanction, dressed in her official Avengers gear, with the Winter Soldier at her back, each and every one of them got the _fuck_ out of the way. Not because there was any reason for the X-men to fear Avengers. They were allies, even in the worst of times.

It was the look on the Winter Soldier’s face that drove people away.

Rikki was absolutely certain that her father had gone insane.

She led him through the polished wood hallways of the school, to the Professor’s office.

Jaime and JARVIS had combed the world using computers and cameras. JARVIS had negotiated information exchanges with every intelligence agency from the CIA to Pakistan's ISI to Russia’s FSB. They’d established a link into worldwide satellite networks, using the spy drones to scour the planet. Rhodes had come in for several days to help -- he’d led the work that had eventually located Tony when he’d been lost in Afghanistan. Nothing.

Time for less conventional search techniques.

The Winter Soldier went with her because he couldn’t bear to be left behind, but she already knew she was the spokesperson on this mission. He’d taught her everything he knew, to control the soldier inside her. She only wished he’d use that knowledge for himself instead of hiding inside his mask.

She touched her hand to the door and thought, _Professor?_

“You don’t have to scream, Ms. Barnes,” Xavier said, his tone mildly amused. “I can hear your thoughts perfectly well without additional amplification.”

Rikki opened the door. “Sir,” she said, nodding her head. “Captain America sent me, to see if there --”

“I have already been seeking Mr. Stark,” the professor said, turning to face them in his motorized wheelchair. He touched his bald head, just over his left eyebrow. “I have touched Stark’s mind a few times before, so I would recognize his distinct mental voice, should I stumble over it again. But it’s slow going; the population of the world is some seven billion people, and I’m doing a very specific sweep, listening in a crowded room for one specific voice.”

“And your… amplifier thing?” Rikki knew a little about the system that Erik Lehnsherr had helped build that allowed Xavier to enhance and direct his natural abilities.

The man shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry to disappoint,” he said, “but Cerebro is specifically designed to track the unusual alpha waves of those persons who are changed by the X factor gene. I have, in certain circumstances, been able to make use of it to track alien mental signatures, but I’m afraid that Mr. Stark is purely human. Again, we come back to the problem of looking for a needle in a haystack. Or, in this case, one specific needle, when there are billions.”

“There’s nothing you can do to help us?”

“I will continue to seek him,” Professor Xavier said. “There is no cause to give up hope; not yet. It may be he is exceptionally well-hidden, or that someone is blocking my abilities. There are certain enemies who have developed the ability to shield. I have been accompanying the X-men when they’re headed into the field these days. My old friend, Erik, might know something, and while I cannot force him into the truth, several of his regular companions are not so well shielded. Keep Ms. Phimister with you, unless she has need of my help, for the time being, and I will contact you through her, should I discover anything.”

That was kind of him; the Professor was not disapproving of Rikki’s relationship with Ellie, although he’d been a bit strict with them when they’d first started dating. Ellie being two and a half years younger than Rikki, their first dates had been heavily supervised. Now that Ellie was an adult, things were a little easier, but the Professor was still very protective of mutants that he considered to be his charges.

 _Professor, can you hear me?_ She made an effort to keep her mental voice down that she wasn’t yelling inside her own head.

Xavier’s blue eyes flickered to her and then he continued to talk about nothing in particular and his physical voice faded from her ears as she felt his power surround her. _Of course._

_Can you help my father? He’s retreated so far into his programming._

_I’m afraid Mr. Barnes is well beyond my help. His pain glows inside him like a star, but he’s locked it away, so he might continue to function, at least to some degree. I could force those walls open, but I would not be able to control the flow, and he would be flooded with feelings and thoughts he does not wish to acknowledge. With his defenses marshalled at the point of pain, he wouldn’t be able to withstand it._

_What should I do?_

_Time will, in the manner it has, give him some ease._

_Will it?_

_We can hope so._ “Don't write Stark off so soon,” Xavier said aloud. “He’s gotten himself out of many predicaments. There’s a strong possibility he is already working his way home.”

***

_Natasha_

God, Natasha was worn out.

Her observations over the last two weeks that Tony had been missing had netted her a few -- very few -- pieces of vital information. First, the Winter Soldier was much more likely to answer if spoken to in Russian. Second, he flinched, and that badly, from being called Bucky or Yasha. She’d managed to actually get him to look at her by calling him _James_. Not so many memories attached to that particular name. Third, and perhaps the most crucial part of her plan, was that it was her daughter, Zoya, that the Winter Soldier responded to best.

It wasn’t much; he wouldn’t pick up the baby girl, but his eyes would track her across the room, and if she leaned on him as she moved around the room, he didn’t move away, the way he did when most everyone else put hands on him. It was never so bad as a flinch or recoil, but he’d… slide away from the touch, as if he retained just enough self-preservation to not want to draw attention to his revulsion.

Her plan had too many variables, and she had to cut them down. She went to Steve first and got him to take Jess and Sasha out of the Tower for something fun. She talked with Jaime next, and she suspected that if Yasha ever came back from the abyss and found out about this, he would be furious with her.

“Here,” she said, handing Jaime a few custom rounds loaded with dendrotoxin for his pistol. “I’m going to take a risk and I need you to back my play, kiddo, can you do that?”

Jaime tucked the pistol into the concealed holster at the small of his back. “Who do I need to shoot?”

“Possibly, your dad,” she said. “I hope not, but --”

Jaime shuddered, touched the butt of his gun, then relaxed into it. “Odds of that causing a complete a break with reality in a manner that will cause harm, fourteen percent.”

“I know it’s not likely, but I need to know that you can take care of her, if that happens.”

Jaime gave her a quick, soldierly nod, standing at parade rest. She recognized that look, and sighed. Jaime had given himself orders. Maybe her brain was malfunctioning, because she’d just set into motion a plan to put her three-year-old baby girl into the care of two Winter Soldiers.

Just as soon as she could talk her husband into accepting something that reckless.

It took half of the rest of her reserves to get the rest of the Avengers the fuck out of the way. She didn’t want anyone there, no one that Yasha could push the duty off to. Rikki was particularly unpleasant about it, dropping all the way into the grim, bitchy sort of behavior she’d exhibited back when she’d first arrived.

“<He needs to come back to us,>” Natasha finally snapped at her.

“<You’re pushing him,>” Rikki snarled. “<He’s close to the edge all the time.”>

“<He needs to care,”> Natasha said. “<What will happen, do you think, if we get Tony back and Yasha cannot return? If he gets lost in there? He’s the only one who knows his words, we can’t help him if he doesn’t help himself. And the longer he stays in there, the harder it’s going to be to let go again.”>

Eventually, Rikki agreed. She’d gotten used to having her girlfriend’s early warning system, but Ellie was still third eye blinded.

The rest of them were easier: Sam did as she asked out of politeness, Clint from self-preservation. He even took Kate and Doreen with him, promising ice cream, of all things.

Bruce, on the other hand, was not going to be receptive to the idea. So unreceptive, she considered lying her ass off to him, just to get him far enough away before he’d realized what she’d done.

The first time she had seen Bruce with their daughter, it had crystallized her understanding of what had been done to her when the Red Room had tried to insure that she wouldn’t have children. That she would never have something she loved this much. It had taken months for her and Bruce to develop the lullabye. With two blinks and a yawn, Zoya had wrapped her father right around her finger. _Everything_ had changed.

Goddamn right, Red Room sterilized their Black Widows. She’d have fucking done it herself, if it had been her program.

Bruce was fanatical about their daughter’s safety, the way he was fanatical about nothing else.

“He’s not stable,” Bruce said, scowling. Natasha deliberately did not take a step back.

“Yes, I noticed that,” she said. “We have to help him.”

“By putting our daughter at risk?”

“He’s not going to hurt Zoya,” Natasha said. She knew that all the way down to her bones. The sun could stay still in the sky, or the oceans could rise up. Yasha was not going to harm Zoya. “She’s Tony’s daughter, too.”

Bruce closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, calming himself. “Why is she only Tony’s daughter when it’s convenient for you?”

“Zinobiya has three parents, Bruce,” Natasha said, simply. “You’ve known that from the beginning. And Yasha’s not going to take risks with the last bit of Tony he currently has access to. I think she might be the only thing that’ll bring him back to us, even a little. We have to try.”

Bruce heaved a deep sigh. “What’s the plan, then?” She gave him a tight smile; manipulating people was her speciality, but she’d spent years trying not to, with the people she cared about. Desperate times and desperate measures, she figured.

“Jaime will be here,” she said. “I trust him, if something goes pear-shaped. You and I are the last adults in the Tower. Let’s go talk to Richards; he’s on the list for a consult anyway. We won’t be gone that long, and Yasha can be left in charge of the kids. It’s not much, I know. But if he’s going to come back at all, it needs to be in little steps.”

“Hopefully Reed can find Tony and this’ll stop being a problem.” Bruce muttered. _Well, yes, duh_ , Natasha thought with a quick internal eyeroll, but when were things ever that easy? Never, that’s when.

Bruce gave her a green look, quick and sharp, and she knew she’d won, but that the cost would be stepping back on the next several arguments. She sighed inwardly. _See what I do for you, Yasha?_ Of course he didn’t. He couldn’t. Yasha had lost his touchstone.

So she was just going to have to give him a new one.

She spoke Russian when she gave the pre-schooler over to him, not taking no for an answer, not even listening to the few protests Yasha managed to make. They weren’t even real protests, just one word suggestions; flat, emotionless. The Siberian snows held more warmth than his eyes. He didn’t even look like the Winter Soldier, not really. The Asset was passionless, but focused. The Winter Soldier had been a force. Implacable determination. Alive.

Natasha leaned in and kissed her daughter as she sat, unsupported in Yasha’s lap, then let go. It was up to Yasha now, to make any moves away from the edge. She waited, just a split second, and then Yasha’s hand came up to support the child’s lower back so she didn’t immediately flip over onto the floor -- Zoya had a terrible tendency to climb up, over, and around every obstacle she found without having a care for gravity.

Gravity was a harsh mistress.

Zoya refused to bend. Honestly, if Natasha hadn’t been there for the child’s conception, she’d swear that Zoya was Clint’s daughter after all.

Natasha turned her back on Yasha, grabbed Bruce’s arm, and hauled him out of the Tower before Yasha could change his mind.

Fortunately, Reed Richards had time for them. He was often not home; getting onto his calendar was an exercise in patience, since he never really knew where, or when, he was going to be anywhere. Tripping through dimensional rips made for a significant lack of timeliness.

But he happened to be in, and wasn’t elbows deep in a project, at least for the moment.

Unfortunately, though perhaps to be expected, he didn’t have any help for them.

“Mm,” he hummed, watching one screen while typing at another with the sort of intent focus that occasionally overtook all of the scientists Natasha knew. “Portals are a fascinating phenomenon, as you know. So many options -- literally an infinite selection! Did you say you have some readings from the one you encountered?”

“A few,” Bruce said, offering Reed a data drive. “Tony’s suit supports a partial installation of JARVIS for flight support and-- well, that’s not important. The suit’s data collection backs itself up to the primary servers wirelessly, and it starts recording everything it can get in the event of unexplained phenomena, so we’ve got readings from about half a second after the portal formed until maybe two seconds before it closed, because it--”

“--was interrupted by the portal closing, of course,” Richards said. He took the drive from Bruce and plugged it into a station at the far side of the room (without walking over there, just reaching, and then reaching some more, and then more still, which was vaguely nauseating to watch). “Unfortunately,” he continued, finally walking the rest of his body over there to examine the data, “it means that the portal’s vectors were lost; those are really only detectable at the moment of stabilization.”

“Which means what, exactly?” Natasha asked.

Reed ignored her for a few more minutes, sifting through the data with a deft touch. “Leading theory posits an infinite number of dimensions; at a minimum, the number is vanishingly large. Each dimension supports a fractal timestream -- that is, to simplify for the uninformed, a more or less infinite number of timestreams. Of a sort. Not to mention the fact that each dimension is fully as large as this one -- a complete universe with an uncountable number of galaxies and stars.

“So tracing the origin point of any given portal is a delicate and multi-faceted equation...” He trailed off into technobabble so thick that even Bruce began to blink in confusion. Reed helpfully tried to break it down to at least Bruce’s level, scribbling arcane mathematics across long sheets of paper, with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was, but eventually Natasha couldn't take it any longer.

“Richards,” she broke in. “Fifty words or less: Is there anything useable in this data, or not?”

“Well, no data is _useless_ ,” Reed protested. “There’s a lot of fascinating atmospheric--” He glanced up and spotted Natasha’s folded arms and raised eyebrow, and tripped toward a conclusion. “I can see the other end of the portal was an Earth-like world, but I’m sorry, unless you have more data than what you’ve given me here, there’s no way to pinpoint him. He could be at nearly any point in history, anywhere in any of trillions of worlds in any of an infinite number of dimensions.”

Bruce’s lip curled with what Natasha was coming to recognize as the blackest of black humor, and asked, “Is that a countable or uncountable infinity?”

Reed had missed the humor, apparently. He blinked owlishly at Bruce. “Uncountable, of course, owing to the continuous nature of time.”


	6. Moments of Transition

 

 

>   _Bester: I mean, being a freedom fighter, a… a force for good, it's… it's a wonderful thing. You get to make your own hours, looks good on a resume, but the pay…_ sucks _._

_Tony - 2045_

“Friday,” Zoya said as she packed her cart. “Could you please take Mr. Stark down to the workshop?”

“Of course, Dr. Romanoff-Banner,” the female AI’s voice issued from the speakers. “I’ll escort him personally.” A moment later, the android was in the room, smiling pleasantly. “If you’ll come with me, sir? I must say, it’s a _pleasure_ to have you with us, at last.”

Tony hadn’t thought he’d designed her personality to be quite that flirtatious, but maybe she’d gotten an update with the body. Or -- well, he hadn’t designed JARVIS to be as protective as he was; the AIs really did have their own changing personalities. “I wish I could say it was a pleasure to be here, but mostly I’m just kind of nauseous and terrified.”

Friday smile reassuringly at him, resting her hand on his arm. “I know, it must be terrible,” she said. “Such a shock. I’m so glad I didn’t have to kill you again. I find it very troubling. But if there’s anything at all I can do to make your stay more comfortable, you don’t hesitate to let me know, all right?”

“Uh. Yeah, I’ll. I’ll do that.” _Killed him_ , Jesus. Not that he probably hadn’t deserved it. He wondered how much awareness M.O.D.O.K. had allowed him. Maybe it would be for the best if he tried to believe his memories had been entirely suppressed, like Bu--

He couldn’t think about Bucky right now, or he was going to lose it.

Friday led him deeper into the facility -- Habble York, she called it, a whole city belowground, housing some seventy thousand people. “It’s been safer to live underground, unless you’re a citizen in the Domes,” she said. “M.O.D.O.K. crafted those. Each Dome has its own M.O.D.O.P. in charge who controls and contains the population. We’ve been working to liberate them since M.O.D.O.K. was dethroned.

“M.O... D.O.P.?” Tony asked. “How are they taking the liberation? If there’s a whole generation of people like Zoya who don’t even remember the before..."

“Mechanical Organism Designed Only for Policing,” Friday explained. “It’s been problematic, but the M.O.D.O.P.s are dangerous, but not very intelligent, so without M.O.D.O.K. at the helm, people were starving to death, which at least gives us an in. We’re running education programs all over Dome Syracuse, to teach people how to farm. By design, the Domes were each dependent on the others. And the Ultron program keeps the bombing run schedule; I haven’t been able to shut him down yet. Anyone who tries to leave the Domes and isn’t in a habble, well. They die, don’t they?”  

“Well... here’s hoping the fix works,” Tony offered. The more he saw of this future, the less funny he found the occasional jokes about him going rogue and conquering the world.

Friday stopped before a thick, metal door. “Your print will open everything that, well, that your print opens. There have been no significant changes to your fingerprints over time to allow us to distinguish between you. This is your workshop. And sir, I think I should tell you, don’t… don’t touch yourself.” She paused, blinking, then said, “That did not come out the way I intended. Let me be clearer: the present day version of yourself does not accept physical contact from others. It upsets him.”

Given what Tony had guessed, reading between the lines, of his... imprisonment, that wasn’t too surprising, though still sad. He wondered if Bucky would--

No. Not going there. He nodded to Friday. “I understand. Thanks.”

“You’re still the boss, Boss,” she said. “Good luck.”

“I thought Jaime was the boss now.”

“We all have our split personalities these days. Jaime is the boss of suit-me, and android numbers 3 and 12. I’m number 4, so, your personal android. Sir.”

Tony blinked at that. And then blinked some more.

“I’m afraid the core-me wasn’t as stable as you would have liked. We split up, to balance the load. It makes us a bit eccentric.”

“Oh. Well, eccentric is all right,” Tony managed. “I’ll just...” He waved at the door. After a moment’s hesitation, he gingerly laid his hand against the plate.

If there was one thing in Tony’s experience that fully embodied the phrase, “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” it was his workshop. Its configuration changed nearly daily, the projects and computer systems on display sometimes hourly -- but it was always the same chaotic jumble of coffee cups and protein bar wrappers and hurriedly-scribbled notes, random tools and tasks half-finished and abandoned or on hold, screens charting the progress of analyses or simulations, each creation a little more amazing than the last. Sometimes Tony forgot that, caught in the rush and scurry of day-to-day life, but as the heavy door swung open, it nearly knocked him to his knees with a sense of _familiar_ and _belonging_ that had been lacking since the moment the portal had closed behind them.

He stumbled forward with a groan, eyes hungrily seeking out each display, each console, each project. The tools were newer, some of them entirely opaque in their use -- Tony was reminded of the months he’d been amnesiac, wandering around his workshop and trying desperately the grasp the thread of his own thoughts that dangled always just out of reach.

Some of it, on the other hand, was like coming home. The holographic projection of the globe with its hotspots of trouble and pinned allies. The dejected slump of the chair in front of the largest workstation. The scent of slightly burnt coffee, ozone, and charred rubber. The series of armors on display, two of them half-disassembled for some maintenance.

“Hm,” said a gravelly voice. “I really was quite the looker, wasn’t I?”

Tony turned around to meet himself.

“Oh, stop trying to act like you’re not shocked,” the older Tony grumbled. “I know I haven’t aged well.”

“ _You_ haven’t aged well?” the woman next to him snorted, pushing a handful of gray hair out of her face. “I’m older than my damn step-father. How revolting. Hi, Tony. It’s been a while.”

“Rikki,” Tony breathed. She looked _so much_ like her father, despite being nearly twice as old as the Bucky that Tony knew. “You’re looking very well, actually.” He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “How’s Ellie?” That was safe, wasn’t it? Zoya had mentioned her, so...

Rikki’s face softened and her mouth tipped up in a smile. “She’s great. Working with the Captain right now; sometimes civvies go a bit nuts when no one’s ordering them about, and having a precog along keeps casualties to a minimum. And we couldn’t have her anywhere near Sav when he’s messing with the timelines, it makes her go crazy. I love my wife, but listening to her babble about alternative time streams for hours on end really gives me a headache.”

Well, he hadn’t fucked that up, at least. “Imagine how much _her_ head hurts.” He offered a smile. “I’m told that I have you to thank for... quite a bit.”

“Out of everyone, I understand what happened to you,” she said. “Or will happen.”

“Won’t happen,” the other… person said. Tony was surprised not to have noticed them first, but it wouldn’t be the first enhanced person Tony’d met with a power that discouraged notice. Tall, slender, androgynous, with enormous wings of fire and smoldering orange eyes, they glanced over at Tony and gestured with one dark-skinned hand. The wrist was narrow and banded with a familiar-looking bracelet that covered half the forearm, shining blue and silver. “Welcome to the end of tomorrow.” The person gestured again, gracefully, and Tony realized that they were using ASL along with the spoken words, the movements somehow echoing and enhancing their meaning.

Tony stared. How had he _missed_ recognizing-- “Sasha?”

The man touched the bracelets at his wrists, one, then the other, and shimmered, twisting and changing, like watching Bruce’s hulk-out in reverse, turning from a brown and orange avenging angel into a heartbreakingly familiar form. If Rikki had looked like an older version of her father, Sasha looked _exactly_ like Bucky, all the way down to the cleft chin, the thousand yard stare, and the brilliant stormcloud eyes. “Most people call me Sav, these days,” he said with an abbreviated gesture that would have to be the ASL version of the name.

He glanced at the older Tony, who looked miserable. “I won’t stay this way long, but he… deserves to see.”

Old Tony was looking at Sasha -- Sav, whatever -- with undisguised ache and longing, and as painful as Tony found it to see Bucky’s countenance so faithfully replicated in their son, it must be a terrible torture for his counterpart, a constant reminder of the damage he’d done. “I’ve seen,” Tony said. “Don’t drag it out.”

Sav nodded, then burst into flames again, his wings circling him in crimson and orange feathers, then spread out, mantling and shaking. “There. We did it, Dad!” He made the old, familiar sign, _Dad-T,_ as he spoke to the older Tony. “We really did! We were cutting it close -- any earlier, and... Well, I’ve never been able to reach further back than my own memories.” He turned to Tony. “See, the problem is, I have to lock the timeline in order to move things around. Usually I don’t. Short paradox problems are self-correcting. If I move from here, say, to across the room five minutes ago, I exist in two places at once, for a few minutes. The universe is capable of handling the strain.” He held out his hands about two feet apart. “Once I unlock the line -- return you to your own time -- the corrections will cascade, and then we’re stuck with the results. So we really _have_ to get it right the first time. And I had a tricky point of time to nail down. We had to get you _before_ M.O.D.O.K. took you and _after_ certain other events, and it’s hard to remember things from when I was that young. My aim’s a little wobbly.”

“But if you will send me back, how is now still-- Never mind, time travel logic always gives me a headache. ...Does that mean your time-travel career is pretty much done?”

“I’ve got one more point of reference I can use to form a portal, some few hours before I sent Jaime initially. So you can go through and wait a few hours until after Jaime kidnaps you in the first place. I’ll unlock the timeline and let your now progress into a new future. We’re not sure, really, what’ll happen then. But _this_ present, the one we’re standing in right now, will never happen.”

That they intended Tony to go back at all made him dizzy with relief. He’d been trying not to think about being trapped here for good, in a world where M.O.D.O.K. and Doom had ruled for most of a generation and so many of Tony’s friends were gone.

“We just need to make sure you’ll be _safe_ ,” Rikki said. “When M.O.D.O.K. took you, everything changed. Your genius, your ingenuity, in his hands? He was brilliant, but not creative. Dangerous, but not a destroyer.”

“So I damselled myself,” the older version of Tony said. “Ironic, isn’t it? After so many kidnapping attempts and ransom demands, that I captured _myself_. I’d laugh, but I just might cry instead.”

“At least you knew what you were doing,” Tony offered. “So I understand that here in the future, _you’re_ the Man with a Plan now. Wanna fill me in?”

“Scorpion blocker,” Rikki said, with a grimace. “I still don’t like it, Tony.” She made another face. “This is so _weird_. I’m gonna yell Tony and both of you are going to turn around at the same time.”

“You can just call me Stark,” Tony volunteered. “That’s what I’m used to you calling me anyway. And tell me about this blocker.”

“It’s not tested,” Tony-the-elder said. “Which of course discourages you not at all. I remember what we were like. I miss JARVIS telling me he had safety protocols for me to disregard. Friday’s not the same, are you, girl?”

“Would you want me to be, boss?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tony said. “If all the AIs had the same personality, they wouldn’t actually be AIs, would they?” He pointed at his counterpart. “And not-tested can be quantified. I mean, did you design it, or do I have to worry about someone else’s math?”

“Ward helped,” the old man grumbled. “He’s faster than Friday with the math. And he makes these incredible leaps of logic that -- well, he takes after his old man, so of course he’s brilliant.”

Tony wondered if that was a reference to himself or to Bucky, but he knew that he wouldn’t want that questioned aloud. Either way... well, Tony already knew how smart Jaime was.

“It’s _partially_ tested,” Rikki said. “We know the failsafe works. It’s the primary that’s the concern, and I don’t like the idea of the London raid, it’s dangerous and stupid and I don’t know why you trust that man, Tony, I swear, I do not.”

“Ooh, who are we trusting that no one else likes?” Tony looked back and forth between them.

“I don’t _trust_ him, that’s the whole point. We’re not allies. He has something I need, and he thinks it’ll get him vengeance. Revenge is a powerful motivator.”

“Oh, excellent, recklessly endangering myself is my third-favorite pastime,” Tony said. “Who?”

“Remember Dr. Maus? The star-nosed mole scientist?” Sav asked, his hands graceful as he stuck one hand under his chin and wiggled his fingers.

Tony didn’t remember the scientist himself very well, but he definitely remembered the tentacle-faced nightmare _moles_. He shuddered. “You’ve got to be kidding me. What does _he_ have that you could possibly need?”

“ _Access_ ,” Old Tony said. “He has access to the London underground. Those moles can dig like nobody’s business, and he can get us inside, past the M.O.D.O.P. protections, so we can just take ourselves one of the mini-bobbles without having to fight through the entire population of London to try to take him alive.”

Tony leaned on the nearest worktable and drummed his fingers. “You want to steal a M.O.D.O.P. Seriously? Aren’t they networked or something?”

“Not since M.O.D.O.K. was killed. They’re all independent, now. Not too smart, though. The one in Singapore just left, wandered off, got itself drowned in a tsunami. Best news I’d had all month.”

“Hm.” Tony drummed his fingers again, then rubbed at his sternum. “Okay, so snatching one isn’t going to tell the others where to find you. What are you going to do with it?”

“See if the scorpion implant keeps you from falling prey to its mind control. If it works, we’ll install it, send you home, and then when M.O.D.O.K. tries to take you, you can kill him, and everything -- all this -- just _doesn’t happen_. I don’t spend thirty years being a prisoner in my own head. I don’t fucking destroy the goddamn world. You know, there’s a four hundred mile wasteland where California used to be. If I can fix this…” The older Tony took a step back, twisting his jaw to one side and closing his eyes.

“No, I get that,” Tony said, waving. “The question is, if the scorpion implant _doesn’t_ work, what happens then? You have to kill me -- _again_ \-- and start over?” He waved at Sav. “He can’t reach any further back, he just said.”

“You don’t have the amplifier. We’ll just get Jessica to drag you away and start over with the development. He took me for two days, planted a fucking antenna in my spine. Do you… well, of course you do, you’re me, and I remember. When Barton shot Bu… the Winter Soldier in the leg? He started then, getting pieces and tech and planning. We chased him around for years and all he was trying to do was get me _alone_.”

“It’s our last chance,” Sav said. “But even if we can only change things a little, maybe it’ll be enough. Maybe the next future me will decide to take a chance on Tony.” Sav glanced over at the older Tony and something passed between them, almost like a ghost of a smile. “But in your time, Dad-B won’t even have time to miss you. You’ll probably have to tell them _something_ , you’re going to have a surgical scar. Tell the Jaime-who-will be, so he remembers to try this later? I don’t know. _Prediction_ is not my skill.”

“They’ll need to know anyway,” Tony said. “If M.O.D.O.K. realizes the implant is there -- and he’s shit at inventing stuff but I think we all know better than to mistake that for actual stupidity -- then he’s just going to keep trying to capture me and take it out.”

Rikki winced. “That’s the part I don’t like,” she confessed. “The scorpion implant will kill you if it’s tampered with. It’ll rip right through your spinal cord. You’ll be dead in _seconds_. It’s not ideal. It fucking sucks and I don’t like it.” She turned an angry face on Tony’s counterpart. “Just because _you_ don’t want to live through it doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t going to have to deal with the consequences. You think I want _my father_ to go through what you’ve suffered?”

“Damn right it’s not ideal,” Tony said, scratching at his beard. “If we only get one shot at this, seconds is far too long. If it’s going to kill me, it needs to be faster than that.” He shot Rikki a wan smile. “Though I admit, I’d really rather avoid dying. I have a lot of things left I’d like to do. Thus, telling everyone what’s happening so they can protect me.” He glanced at his older self, seeing the knowledge echoed there, then looked back at Rikki. “Bucky won’t suffer like this. If I die, Bucky won’t outlive me by more than three days. And that long only because he’ll want revenge first. Get Jaime to run the odds for you.”

“I don’t have to,” she spat. “You’re both idiots of the highest order. You should find a different solution. Give him the Extremis. We _know_ that works.”

“For a certain definitions of _works_ ,” Sav pointed out. “I know you don’t like to see it, sister, but Jaime is _unstable_. He’s --”

“Jaime is fine. He’s _fine_ ,” Rikki said.

“Extremis?” Tony said. “That shit Killian was messing around with? I thought I stabilized that for Pepper; what happened? Also, _why the fuck did you put Extremis in our son?_ ” he demanded. The thought made his blood run cold. He wanted nothing more than to find _his_ Jaime and wrap him up protectively.

“I didn’t do it,” Older Tony said, tipping his head to one side. “He made that choice himself. It let him build the armor inside his skin. It was brilliant, magnificent, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Tony was unimpressed. “I’ve never seen anything like the way the armor _ripped his skin off_ after he brought me over. You seriously endorsed that?”

“You sound like the Captain,” Rikki said. “He hates it. With the hate of a dying sun, _loathes_ it. He about swallowed his tongue when Danny started talking about using it.”

Tony pulled up short. “Who’s Danny?”

“Uncle Steve and Aunt Jess’s adopted daughter. She’s pretty amazing even without it,” Sav said. “She took her parent’s enhancements and squared them all. She’s like that old comic book hero, what was his name, Rix?”

“Superman,” Rikki said, rolling her eyes.

The older Tony almost smiled. “When they grow up surrounded by a bunch of self-sacrificing idiots, they grow up to _be_ self-sacrificing idiots. There’s only so much I could’ve done to stop him.”

“He’s _obsessed_ is what he is,” Sav said. “Obsessed that this is all somehow his fault. Obsessed with keeping a promise he made thirty years ago. It’s driving him to extremes, Rikki, and you need to recognize that. If you keep pretending it’s not happening, we’re going to lose him.”

“So it all comes back to making sure that M.O.D.O.K. never gets his hands on me,” Tony said. “I’m a little surprised no one’s suggesting just killing me outright, frankly. I’ll take the death-before-dishonor route.”

“I did suggest it,” Older Tony said. “She talked me out of it.” He indicated Rikki with an upturned eyebrow.

Sav snorted, his wings quivering. “Is _that_ what you’re calling it? I thought she threatened to stuff you in a box next to Banner if you so much as considering going through with second-hand suicide.”

“And you didn’t take her up on that?” Tony asked himself. “I mean, death by starvation isn’t pretty, but it’d still get you there.”

“But it wouldn’t have actually fixed anything,” the old man said. “So unless you’ve got a better idea, the London trip is still on.”

“I’m not going to let you kill yourself, Tony,” Rikki said. “Not in any timeline. Just accept that, okay. It’s not fucking happening on my watch.” She pointed an angry finger at the old man. “And I’ve got Ellie watching you, so don’t think you can get around me. You’re going to live and you’re going back to the past and everything is going to be _fine_.”

The elder Tony rolled his eyes. “With all this love and appreciation, it’s hard to know why I’d ever want to go,” he snarked. Tony didn’t miss the small upturn of his mouth or the way his posture relaxed, just a hair, though.

“Ug. I’m going to go wait for the ‘jet. Ellie and the Captain should be back soon.” She threw up her hands. “You are impossible, no matter what time we’re in.” And with that, she hugged Tony so hard he thought she was going to snap his spine by accident, never mind the scorpion blocker.

Rikki _never_ hugged him. Or expressed any sort of appreciation, or any but the most grudging respect, even if she’d finally cooled it on the outright anger. It took Tony a moment to get through his surprise and put his own arms around her. It felt weird, and he didn’t quite understand until he saw that the older Tony had turned resolutely toward a working display, manipulating the symbols there with a hand that trembled, more than slightly. Age, or suppression of panic? Tony sighed and hugged Rikki a little tighter. “He loves you,” he whispered. “Never doubt it.”

“Of course you do,” she said. “I’m _amazing_. Best daughter you ever had. ‘Course I’m the only daughter you ever had, so the bar’s pretty low. It’ll be fine, Dad, we’ll fix it. Promise.”

She gave him an extra squeeze and then left the workshop.

Tony pointed at Sav. “You don’t get hugs from me while you’re on fire. That is a rule in my time and I feel very good about keeping that one going.” He stepped up to the worktable, careful to keep distance between him and his counterpart. “Let’s see the schematic for this thing. I try not to have things in my body without knowing how they work.”


	7. Survivors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Note 1:** The second half of this chapter is (f/f) smut; if that's not your thing, stop reading after the scene break!
> 
> **Note 2:** We've made a minor change in response to some extremely valid reader criticism, to wit, that making Danielle/Danny the biological child of Steve Rogers and Jessica Jones is whitewashing an existing character of color (in the comics, she's the child of Jessica and Luke Cage). This is more than slightly troubling given the current state of race relations in the U.S., where we both live. By way of correction, we've retconned Chapter 4 to explain that Danny is the daughter of Luke Cage and Claire Temple, rescued and raised by Steve and Jessica after the Defenders were captured by M.O.D.O.K. This note is partly an explanation, for those of you who read that chapter before we made the change, and who therefore might be confused by the changed references in this and future installments.
> 
> The other part of this note is a heartfelt apology. At the time we wrote this (more than six months ago) we considered the question and came to the decision that erasing her entirely would be the worse option. We were wrong about that, and we're very sorry, especially to our readers of color who might have been uncomfortable or upset.

> _G'Kar: The Universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest._

_Steve - 2045_

“I’ve got your six, Captain,” Sasha’s voice came over the coms and Steve glanced out the port-side view to catch a glimpse of avenging angel. “You’ve got a drone on you.”

“Thanks, Sasha” Steve said, as Sasha blew the drone out of the sky with a slash of super-heated fire from one palm. Steve knew his foster son prefered Sav these days, but the habits of twenty years died hard. “I’ve got the girls with me and you know how Jess prefers a smooth flight.”

Sasha laughed, carefree and easy as he was, twirling in the sky around the ‘jet. “If Aunt Jess asks nicely, Dad-T might rebuild the Baxter building, just so she can crash into it.”

“You are not too old to be grounded,” Jess said through the comms.

“He’s here,” Sasha said. “Just so you know.”

Tony, _god_. Steve couldn’t imagine what the man must be going through. Steve had been there that day, when everything had gone crazy. When Tony had been taken by force and turned on his teammates. Steve had almost killed Tony that day, and heaven help him, he still sometimes wished he _had_. “Thanks. How’s he coping?”

“How do you think? We’ve dumped thirty years of shit on his head over a matter of hours. I’m shocked that he’s only fainted once, and that was when Ward first brought him through.”

Steve smiled, fondly. The Tony of Steve’s second rebirth had been a twitchy, neurotic man with a dozen different hangups and quirks, prone to exasperated screeds and crazy plans. But in a crisis, Tony was the most brilliant, erratic genius ever known. “He’ll be fine until he gets a chance to think too much about it.”

“Well, then, you better get down here and distract him,” Sasha said. “You’re clear to land.”

“Thanks so much for your permission. Where is he?”

“Workshop, where else?”

“Both of them?” That was a shock. He wouldn’t have expected that. The contemporary Tony was suspicious and territorial sometimes, and the ‘shop was decidedly his territory. God knew Tony didn’t like _Steve_ in the workshop.

“‘Course.”

“Tell your sister to get out of my landing spot,” Steve muttered. Rikki was edging onto the yellow line, shifting impatiently from foot to foot like she hadn’t seen her wife less than three days ago.

Steve dropped the ‘jet onto the landing zone and let the automatics stow the craft. Ellie was down the ramp before it even finished lowering, throwing herself into Rikki’s arms with abandon. Jess shook her head. “Were we ever that young?” Not that Rikki and Ellie were all that young. And honestly, Jess looked younger than Ellie -- something to do with the super-healing. Rikki was gray-haired, but she could still drop Steve in the ring, three falls out of five.

“Hey, Steve, Jess,” Sasha said as they disembarked, although his hands made the signs for Dad and Mommy. They were the only parents Sasha had really known, much like Danny, whose parents had been taken in one of the earlier Purges.

“I want to see him,” Steve said.

“‘Course you do,” Sasha said. “He’s the nine-days wonder hereabouts.” He shifted out of his angelic form. It was hard for him to maintain it for long periods of time, although he did, out of respect for Tony, who had trouble with how much he resembled Bucky. Not that Steve wasn’t reminded, every single time he looked at his foster son, but at this stage of the game, Steve wasn’t sure that he hadn't replaced Bucky in his head with the son that was so much like him. That’s what came, he thought, of living through three major world changes. The past and the present muddled itself up and tried to find parallels where there were none.

“Friday, you want to suggest to our guest that he have something to eat?” Sasha directed that at one of the androids. Steve was always a little leery of them; he couldn’t tell one of the androids from the other, and 8 had harbored some sexual interest in Steve for a while that had been awkward to discourage. Right up until Jess had threatened her with disassembly and relocation into a trash compactor.

When Tony entered the caf, Steve thought his heart was going to stop. It was like looking at a ghost, the same heart-stopping shock of recognition as that moment on the streets in DC when the Winter Soldier had lost his muzzle and Bucky had looked out at him from under a tangle of hair. _God, he looks… so young_.

Tony stumbled to a stop when he looked up and saw Steve. He looked around, like he was expecting someone to jump out and announce it was all a joke, and then looked back at Steve. He ignored the Friday trying to lead him over to the food line and instead strode straight over to Steve. “You... haven’t changed at all,” Tony said, squinting at Steve’s face. “Christ.” He tipped his head toward Jess. “Jones. You still putting up with this loser?”

“Turns out that we’re both pretty much immortal,” she said, shaking her head. “This way, I don’t have to put up with wrinkles. I’d ask how you’ve been, but, for you, I think we just saw you in the morning? I don’t know, the future’s pretty awful, don’t you -- Shit, there I go, Steve, why do you let me talk? I am a stupid sundae.”

“It’s been a hell of a day for me,” Tony agreed. “And apparently it’s going to just keep getting worse from here on in, at least for a while.”

Friday sniffed and put a tray of food down in front of Tony. “You should eat, boss,” she said. “Time travel is hard on a human system. It is important that you keep up your strength.”

Tony rolled his eyes but picked up an apple and took a big bite. “Okay, look, I’m eating, see? I don’t suppose you have coffee in the future.”

Steve schooled his expression into helpful neutrality. “Ah, coffee’s not good for you, and it's been deemed that anything not good for you is bad; hence, illegal. Alcohol, caffeine, contact sports, meat…”

Tony narrowed his eyes at Steve. “Are you... Are you quoting _Demolition Man_ at me, Rogers? I did not travel thirty years into the future to put up with your sass.” Cranky as he sounded, some of the tension eased from his shoulders.

“Is there a non-specified point in the future that you’ll be willing to put up with it?”

Tony mimed thinking about it. “No. No, I’m pretty sure my AIs have given me enough sass to last a lifetime, I don’t need you piling it on, too.” He was laughing as he said it, though, and his complexion turning less pale. “Coffee! My genius demands coffee.”

“Here,” Jess said, pushing her cup across the table. “There’s a shortage of real dairy and I hate that powdered crap. I’ll just stim. Oh, oh, God, _Tony_. You’ve never had a stim, have you?”

“Jess, just don’t,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. Tony on _stims_ , dear god, the world trembled at the thought.

“No, seriously, he’ll love it,” Jess said. She reached into her bag and grabbed a few green tubes, dropping them on the table.

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Steve said, trying to take the tubes away from her.

Tony’s eyes lit up and he snatched up a couple of the tubes before Steve could get them all. “You are a true friend, Jones, and I will honor you forever. Or until the next time you have screaming sex while I’m hungover. Whatever’s first.”

Jess tipped her head back and broke the tube over her mouth, pouring what looked like green sand onto her tongue.

“You are a stim addict,” Steve complained, but he couldn’t help smiling. Like everything else, stims had little to no effect on his enhanced metabolism, giving him only a momentary jolt. If he did three at a time and added an adrenal to the mix, it was kinda like having an orgasm, but that just made him a little sleepy. For most people, though, stims and adrenals were a way of life, like Red Bull and Twinkies had been, back in the days after he’d come out of the ice.

Tony watched and then copied Jess. “Oh dear lord, that’s _terrible_ ,” he coughed, but Steve could practically see the stim hitting his system. “I take it back, this is _wonderful_. I’m taking it back with me and reverse-engineering it so that I’ll never have to do without it again.”

“We’re all going to die,” Steve intoned, solemnly.

“Don’t forget, your body still needs sleep and food,” Jess said, seriously. “Stims and adrenals can get you through a tough few days, but you can work yourself to death and never feel it.”

Tony tipped his head as if he were looking over the rim of sunglasses that he wasn’t wearing. “One: I am the all-time expert at working myself to death; I don’t need you to tell me about it. And two: if I’m still here in a few days, I’m probably going to die anyway.”

Steve blinked a few times, his eyes sticky with emotion. It wasn’t like he’d be over it, he’d never be over it, but for Tony, everything was so new, so fresh. _God_ , they were both being insensitive. “I’m so sorry you’re here, Tony, but I am still so damn _glad_ to see you.”

Tony finished eating his apple, core and all. “Kinda glad to see you guys, actually. It’s entirely too weird to be ushered around by people whose diapers I was changing _literally_ yesterday.” He reached across the table to clap Steve’s shoulder, and that shouldn’t have been weird; the two of them had always been poking and nudging and bumping into each other, but since they’d gotten Tony back from M.O.D.O.K... Steve hadn’t realized how accustomed he’d grown to making sure Tony always had enough space.

“There’s still a few of the old crew around,” Steve said, “And you’ll never believe some of the ones who joined our side. Would you believe that Lehnsherr came around after Charles Xavier was killed? They had some weird friends-to-enemies-to-friends thing going on, apparently. He’s a powerhouse. Does good work, even protecting non-mutants, these days.”

Tony looked surprised, and then suspicious. Not that Steve could blame him; Steve had entertained more than a few suspicions at first, as well. Lehnsherr had been a real thorn in the Avengers’ sides for a while, and few moreso than the man wearing the metal suit. Tony didn’t voice his concerns, though it didn’t take a spy to see he wanted to.

“Eat up,” Steve told him, “and now it’ll be my turn to catch _you_ up on a few decades of entertainment.”

***

_Rikki_

One of the few problems with being in love with a precog (scientific term for Ellie’s particular talent was _clairvoyant serialist_ ) was that Rikki’s wife was never, ever surprised.

_Not true_ , Ellie would protest, if Rikki brought it to her attention. When the usual map of the future gave her ten roads that were the same and one that was different, Ellie was convinced that Rikki always selected the one, just to be difficult.

“How’s it look?” Rikki asked, as soon as Ellie’s arms were around her neck and Rikki had once again confirmed the existence of her wife through the sound of her lungs and the taste of her lips.

Ellie hissed, a long exhalation of air. Charles Xavier had tried to drill it home with her, when she was younger, that she shouldn’t predict the future for other people; self-fulfilling prophecy and a loss of faith in free will were often traumatic for humans. But Charles was dead and they were allied with Magneto. And Ellie, who lived in the paths of time that hadn’t yet been trod, had never listened well anyway.

“We’ve got about a thirty percent for a completely favorable outcome,” she said, drawing Rikki into the habble, away from the Protector’s common rooms -- the cafeteria was always crowded in the evening: those who had once been Avengers, the mutants, the half-kree, the non-humans, and others who had joined together to protect what remained of humanity. Ellie preferred to cook in their own chambers. She’d improved remarkably from the girl she’d once been who’d gone to cooking classes with Rikki and failed them miserably.

Rikki tried to smile and couldn’t quite. Thirty percent was good, that was better than they’d had yesterday. And yet…

“He’s still thinking about suicide, isn’t he?” Rikki’s eyes burned and she rubbed at her nose.

“You know I can’t read thoughts,” Ellie said. She diced vegetables and shook the cutting board over the pan.

“You don’t need to,” Rikki said. “You’re not answering the question; you’d see the results if he does.”

“He has hope, at the moment. Less than five percent, now.”

“Good.” Rikki swept her gaze over the _mis en place_ tray. “You’re making etouffee?”

“Do you think Tony would want to join us?” Ellie asked, laughing.

“I think both of the Tonys are still scarred for life from our cooking, kitten,” Rikki said. “But we could bring him some leftovers, just for the look on his face.”

Ellie shivered, her brown eyes going gold-orange for just a moment, and then she laughed. “It would be horribly mean. We should definitely do it.”

“You already got your enjoyment out of it,” Rikki said. Ellie had taken years to grow comfortable with her ability, to accept the things her visions showed her without flinching away from -- sometimes -- truly awful futures.

Ellie hummed thoughtfully. “He could use the company, to relax a little,” she said. “He’s going to be dealing with an amorous android tonight, which may be a little much for him. As far as _he’s_ concerned, your dad’s still alive, waiting for him. He won’t go for a romp with an artificial life form that he will not yet have created, and I think he’s a little too much on edge to deal with it and not hurt Friday’s feelings.”

“Right.” Friday… well, she’d been broken a few times, and while the android was exceptionally helpful -- especially for the members of the Iron Legion, who all wore versions of Tony’s suits -- she was also very touchy.

“There’s a pound cake in the fridge,” Ellie said. “We can bring him a bit of a meal and some dessert. No, Rix, no wine.” Rikki stopped, her hand poised over the rack.

“Okay. I’ll just open it now, then. Tony might not need a glass, but _suka, blyad_ , I do.”

Ellie rested the cooking fork against the saute pan. “Stop thinking of endings, Rikki Barnes-Stark-Phimister. I told you, there are very few futures in which we don’t end up together.”

“Feels like everything’s ending,” Rikki said. She poured herself a brimming glass of the smooth red. “It might not be much of a life, kitten, but it’s ours. Who’s to say that preventing this will make things better for anyone. What if M.O.D.O.K. was the lesser of two evils?”

“Trust you to come up with the most morbid possible thought,” Ellie said. “Down to your bones, you’re a Russian.”

Rikki threw the rest of the wine down her throat, the tannins drying her lips, the heady bloom smell of cherries and cinnamon filling her nose. “And you love me,” Rikki said, setting the glass aside. She glanced at her wife through her lashes, mouth twisting into the tempting smile she’d perfected. “Dinner will wait. Tony will wait. Come to bed with me.”

Ellie turned off the stove and Rikki didn’t wait any longer than that before sliding her arms around her wife’s waist, nuzzling at her ear. “I missed you, kitten,” she said. Smiling, Ellie leaned back against Rikki, sinking into the heat of Rikki’s embrace. She toyed with the cuff of Rikki’s sleeve.

“I was barely gone,” Ellie said.

“I only have this one timeline to share with you, so every second of it is precious to me,” Rikki said. She ran her hand over the rough, shorn hair. The inky stain of Ellie’s hair was almost a finger’s length now -- she hadn’t had to use her combat abilities on this mission, at least. The Captain had promised to look after her, and Rikki was grateful that he had. Rikki rather preferred her wife having eyebrows; the bald-faced look was always just a little alien.

“God, you’re cheesy,” Ellie accused, giggling. She turned in Rikki’s arms, and Rikki swooped down to catch her mouth in a searing kiss. The touch of Ellie’s lips was no less urgent, even given her amusement, setting Rikki’s heart to beating in a desperate, urgent cadence. Her fingers gripped the round curve of Ellie’s shoulders, the fabric of her soft scarf tangling under Rikki’s hands.  When their lips parted, a little skipping sort of sigh escaped her from her mouth. Even after so long together, there was nothing she ever wanted more than the fire of passion that simmered between them, always threatening to boil over at a moment’s notice.

Rikki’d been staring into Ellie’s brown eyes for almost thirty years and every time she did it, she was surprised anew, touched and honored that this remarkable woman loved _her_ , a former assassin, a soldier of darkness. It never failed to make her heart leap with excitement at Ellie’s touch.

Ellie cradled the sides of Rikki’s face, her thumb smoothing over the laugh lines that creased in the corners of Rikki’s eyes. Her soft mouth nuzzled at Rikki’s jaw and down her throat, quick clever fingers were on the buttons of her shirt in seconds. Yes, yes, Rikki was already too hot, too eager.

“God, it’s been _forever_ ,” she complained, peeling out of the shirt as soon as Ellie finished unfastening it.

“You always say that,” Ellie said, her hands divesting herself of her own clothes, using the tempting shape of her body to lure Rikki back to the bedroom.

“It always _is_ ,” Rikki pointed out. “Never, ever get enough of you, kitten.”

“It’s so lovely to be adored,” Ellie teased, and then she was pinned against the wall gasping into Rikki’s mouth as Rikki ran out of patience, her hands roaming all over Ellie’s lithe form. She curled one hand possessively over Ellie’s breast, thumbing her nipple into a hard peak. She dropped her head, took that stiff, sensitive flesh into her mouth, her tongue moving rapidly, flicking over the very tip until Ellie was sagging in her embrace. “Come on, come on, bedroom, soldier. I’m too old for you to ravish me up against the wall.”

“You’re never anything but lovely to me,” Rikki protested, only a little disappointed. As nice as it was to let her temperament run wild, to lose her doubts and fears in the sweetness of Ellie’s embrace, Ellie was right. Both of their backs would complain tomorrow if they gave in to the temptation to act like they were twenty years younger. There was still time, time to be slow and easy and gentle, no matter that Rikki could almost visualize the red sands from the hourglass, stained with blood, seeping through her fingers, nothing she could do to stop it.

They paused at the threshold to kiss and stroke and tease, and Rikki’s pants ended up around her ankles, nearly tripping over them as they retreated toward the bed. “For someone who says she’s not twenty anymore, you’re certainly acting eager,” Rikki pointed out.

“I make exceptions, just for you,” Ellie said.

“Good.” Rikki growled, possessive, taking hold of her wife’s mouth and branding her with searing kisses. Ellie was hers. She knew, _knew_ , that Ellie only said things like that because they drove Rikki to greater urgency, but she couldn’t help it. Any thought of being without this remarkable woman was agony, squeezing her heart, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it, except bring Ellie the very best sorts of pleasure and make sure she was well cared for, never wanted to leave.

Ellie’s shaky laugh ended as Rikki tipped her onto the bed and covered her, kissing every inch of skin she could get to, tasting and licking and nuzzling at the soft skin of her breast. Ellie’s breath teased at Rikki’s throat as Ellie traced a line of kisses down to her collarbone, biting there and Rikki threw her head back, inhaling.

“Yes, yes,” Ellie said, reassuringly, her hands infinitely tender and sweet, finding all those places on Rikki’s body that made her arch and moan. “I’ve got you, darling, I’m right here. We’re still together. Everything’s fine. Love you, Rikki.”

Ellie pressed up against her, and Rikki was once again rendered helpless with desire. Nothing she’d ever experienced in her life had prepared her for the sort of love her wife gave her, utter trust and devotion, and Rikki was humbled, once again, at the strength of it.

Ellie’s hand stole steadily downward, her fingers curved as she slid between Rikki’s thighs. The heat burned as much as it ever had, and she was whimpering in moments as Ellie teased her folds apart, stroking with one finger, soft and quick and light. Every time Rikki’s hips betrayed her, every time she rocked against Ellie’s hand, Ellie would draw back, tempting and torturous, until Rikki was holding herself up, arms shaking and stomach aching with need.

Sweat ran down her neck and she bit at her lip as Ellie stroked her, and then she was shuddering, her arms unable to support her any longer. Rikki shivered into bliss, crying out against her wife’s neck, the sounds lost to her as waves of sweetness flowed over her.

“Ellie, Ellie,” Rikki cried out, “please, you’re driving me mad.”

“Then I’ll have to go slower,” Ellie said, her teeth hard and sharp against Rikki’s neck. “Just… like this…” She continued to move, even after Rikki’s flesh stopped quivering, past the aftershocks and all the way into overstimulated twitches.

“ _God…_ ”

Ellie traced slow, tormenting circles around her. A whimper caught in Rikki’s throat as her wife was relentless, almost cruel. Finally, when her need had built to an urgency that was painful, Ellie slid two fingers inside, her thumb still working Rikki’s clit, brushing each time she worked in her, slow and again.

“There,” Ellie murmured, thumb brushing over that tiny node. “Is this what you wanted, darling?”

Rikki could only cry out, incoherent as she was immolated by desire. She kissed Ellie, her tongue matching the strokes of Ellie's fingers, then picking up the pace, driving Ellie to move faster, to keep up. Her moans were absorbed by the ardent kisses and the intimate channeling of the lust that flowed between them. Ellie stroked her, her touch deft and skilled, rhythmic, even as she matched Rikki’s pace, gave over everything that Rikki wanted, and still it ached as she needed more, more.

Driven into a sensuous frenzy, Rikki’s fingers sunk into Ellie’s shoulders, holding as tight as she could, frantic, as if they could blend together, become one person. Oh, god.

“You always look so intent,” Ellie said, light, almost scolding, beneath her. “The things it makes me want to do to you.”

“Do them _now_ ,” Rikki demanded, her teeth clenched.

“I’ve got you,” Ellie said, spreading her legs and Rikki moved, sliding one thigh between Ellie’s legs.

Rikki braced her hand against the wall, lining them up, her body at an angle and she ground down, feeling the tickle of Ellie’s public hair against her mons. She shifted again, then, yes, there, right like that, and Ellie pushed up, their bodies moving together, easy and sweet. Ellie slid a hand down between them, veed her fingers, spreading her labia open and that was even better, so hot, their skin together, sticky and wet, each nerve ending on fire as Rikki moved over her wife.

“God, you’re so lovely,” Ellie gasped, looking up, her free hand gripping Rikki’s hip, yanking her down roughly.

Rikki made a primal, throaty sound of need as Ellie arched up, her breasts quivering as she panted for breath. “I want all of you,” she gasped.

They rubbed together one more time, the nerve endings sparking like a whimsy of fireflies, and then Rikki moved again, sliding down Ellie’s body until she was buried between Ellie’s legs, her mouth wet and hot against Ellie’s clit, lapping wetly at that little nub, working it with fervor. She licked, lush and gentle, tasting the heavy salt of Ellie’s body, revelling in it, until Ellie was moaning and clutching at Rikki’s curls with both hands, jerking and pulling. Ellie cried out, sharp and glorious, her whole body shaking and trembling, and Rikki suckled and licked her through her release. Even after Ellie stilled, Rikki was reluctant to leave, stayed there absently mouthing at Ellie’s thighs and belly before finally coming up to snuggle against her wife’s side.

“Are you satisfied?” Ellie asked, her typical question after lovemaking.

“ _Never_ ,” Rikki said, her eternal answer.


	8. And the Sky Full of Stars

> _Sinclair: Maybe the universe blinked. Maybe God changed His mind. All I know is that we got a second chance!_

_Tony - 2045_

Jaime’s home was a couple of box-cars that had been welded together, with a few holes cut in them for doors. He’d made do as well as he could to make it somewhat homey with plaster and rugs, but it was cold inside and reminded Tony, inexorably, of the fact that they were, indeed, underground. Jaime had glow-in-the-dark stars laid out in the constellation patterns on the ceiling in the room that he led Tony to, along with a bed, desk, and several crates of half-completed engineering projects.

Rikki and Ellie had dropped by with home cooking and half a cake. Ellie’s cooking had improved dramatically, and Tony made a joke about her having needed a lot of time to practice. Her hugs, on the other hand, hadn’t changed much, which was nice. She was sporting a few new scars and the years had put some curves on her formerly tiny body. She was almost the exact same age as Tony now, which was _weird_. She talked a little about what was going on in Syracuse, including a breakdown of the whole new batch of super soldiers they’d found there, boys and girls in their teens who had been in storage tubes. Zoya was probably going to head up in a few days to try and wake them up.

The mention of her name made Jaime clench his jaw and stare at the ceiling.

While the girls were around -- women, Tony corrected himself -- it wasn’t too hard to keep his mind from dwelling on, well, everything. Rikki had changed a lot in the last few decades. She was more open, lighter, and she told really good stories, relating tale and after tale, mostly of Steve and his adventures with fatherhood -- Danny was apparently as hot-headed and apt to pick fights as Steve himself. His favorite was a story of Danny at six, who’d gotten into a pissing contest with the Hulk and actually come out on top.

But then they’d gone, and Jaime had turned introspective. The conversation had died off, until he’d finally given up and gone to bed.

The inside of Jaime’s home was a brutal and unrelenting dark, once the stars had faded from their dingy green glow. It was so quiet that Tony could hear Jaime breathing from the next room. The air was stale, unmoving, stagnant.

Sleep was not something that was going to happen. There was no way. Not with everything he’d seen and learned. He waited for Jaime’s breathing to turn slow and regular, then got up and slipped quietly out of the tin-can house.

The habble at night looked very much like the habble during the day, but with even fewer people around. Tony wandered slowly, turning all the pieces over in his head, looking for the edges that fit together, and for the edges that would cut him.

A piece of shadow picked itself out of an overhang, straightened, and walked toward Tony, gradually resolving into a female form, this one with deep blue and and pale silver hair. One of the Fridays -- the face was growing eerily familiar. She wore a dull red jumpsuit, which when combined with the hair gave her a weirdly Captain America color scheme. “Hey boss,” she said, stepping exactly one pace too close inside his personal space. “Can’t sleep?”

“Sleeping’s not really my style,” Tony said with a sardonic smirk. “Which one are you? Sorry, if there’s a way to keep you straight, I haven’t spotted it.”

Friday smiled. “I like to tell everyone I’m the thirteenth,” she said, and Tony laughed. “It almost doesn’t matter, we share our memory databanks and sync up regularly. But if it makes you more comfortable, you can call me Eight.”

“Whichever,” Tony agreed. “What’re you doing out and about in the middle of what I’m told is the night?”

“I don’t sleep, either,” she said. “I had the notion that you might like to see the stars. And perhaps some company might not go amiss.”

Did his AI get lonely? He hadn’t really thought about it before. He wondered suddenly and sharply what had happened to DUM-E and U in this timeline, then pushed the thought away. “How do you see the stars from down here?”

“It was a gift,” she said. “Come, I’ll show you.” She made an alien beckoning gesture, then fell into step with him, using gentle pushes against his arm to direct him. She occasionally pointed out some feature of the habble or other; the Memoriam, Legion’s Hall, the Armory. All things Tony could have used to devastating results, if he was forced to turn against this small community.

“Some dozen years ago,” she said, finally, opening the doors to a large room, with benches placed around it like an auditorium, “we had a visit from a Terran who grew up among aliens. A traveller and a warrior and, as Dr. Banner said, a _right pain in the ass.”_ She indicated a series of holographic portraits, one of a scruffy man with tawny hair and a roguish smile. “Starlord. And his crew: Gamora, Draxx, Groot, and Rocket.” A sentient tree waved at him from the holograph, something like a smile on the bark-like face.

Tony watched the portraits for a moment. “Yep, they look like a bunch of assholes,” he said cheerfully. “I’m sure we had a lot of fun with them.” He frowned. “You. _You_ had. I wasn’t... here.”

“Not yet, no, boss,” Friday said, sadly. The holograph of Starlord was dancing. The moves came straight out of the 80’s, which would have been embarrassingly dated if it weren’t for the rocket boots and billowing red-leather coat, which gave it a sort of retro-nostalgia vibe.  Friday reached out and touched a panel set in the wall near the holographs and the entire room nearly exploded into a three-dimensional star map.

“This was his gift. If we could ever reach the stars, he told us where to go,” she said. “And, more importantly, where we _shouldn’t_ venture. If there’s a part of the sky you wish to examine?”

Tony had to close his eyes for a moment and listen to the quiet background hum of the habble, to remind himself that it wasn’t a portal, he wasn’t lost -- well, any more lost than he’d already been, anyway. He wasn’t about to die alone. He took a breath and opened his eyes again, looking around. It wasn’t quite like being in the sky, but it was detailed and intricate.

_Jane would kill for this_ , he thought, and felt his lips tug toward a smile. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “What’s the most interesting? What do you like?”

“Port Knowhere,” she said. She gestured, dragging the galaxy around with a few tugs of her fingers until a giant, decapitated head swam into view, enormous enough that full sized battleships were in orbit near the eye sockets. “This is Starlord’s home, where he and the other Guardians conduct their business and do their work. A freehold of trade and politics. I should like to see it, sometime.”

“Huh.” The detail was incredible. “Do I want to know why it looks like a skull?”

“Because it is,” Friday said. “A Celestial died; the body was mined for centuries for the rare and precious materials the Celestials are formed from. This is… what remains.”

Tony blinked and tried to imagine a creature big enough to support that skull. It would stand at least as tall as the moon. That... was hard to fathom.

Friday moved closer to him, put her hand on his wrist and gave him a quick glance. “Or we could look at Nova Prime, a shining beacon of technology and civilization. Starlord calls them a bunch of uptight do-gooders with sticks up their butts. Their ships are a marvel, even among space-going societies.”

“Sounds like the Avengers’ kind of place,” Tony said. “Steve can chat up the uptight do-gooders, and I can poke at the tech, and I’m pretty sure the others would find some trouble to get into.”

Friday moved them around the universe. “Kree.” Swish. “Skrullos, home of the Skrullz.” She flicked again, and then they were looking down at Earth. “So tiny, and yet so much potential. I always like the view from here. Starlord was born here. His mother was Terran. He comes back from time to time, to see how we’re doing.”

“Huh. I wonder... I’d like to meet him. All of them. I haven’t encountered too many aliens who were actually friendly.” He looked down at the tiny image of Earth, marveling at the dim fuzz of satellites and junk in its orbit. He wondered what sort of galactic google car had captured that image. Had it been before or after he’d been yanked into the future? Did the Earth he was looking at have him on it at all?

She turned, leaning against one of the benches, looking up into Tony’s face. “You look troubled,” she said, softly.  

“Well, sure,” he said. “Plenty to be troubled about, right? I mean, I’m looking at having a scorpion implanted in my spine because the alternative is getting the whammy put on me by M.O.D.O.K. and killing my husband. It’s... I’ve had better days.”

Friday tilted her head. “Humans are so remarkable,” she said, almost as if she were talking to herself. “Nearly impossible to run an accurate simulation; so many variables. I can give you ease, if you wish it.” She touched her own shoulder lightly. “Fully functional and _interested_.”

Tony stared at her. “I’m, you, I... You know I’m married, right? I mean, actually, literally, woke up _this morning_ next to my husband, and have every intention of getting home to him as soon as I possibly can.”

“Of course,” she said, easily enough. “And certainly, I wish to help you in every way I can to accomplish that. Notes from your file indicate that your performance, intellectually and manual dexterity are at peak form whenever you’ve recently engaged in sexual activities. My predecessor kept detailed files.”

“Oh my god. No. _No_. I’m married _and faithful_ thank you very much and also if I built you then that would be like having sex with my child, which -- gross. Or else like having built a sexbot, which is something I try really hard to leave behind to certain ill-considered days in my distant past.” Tony took a step back.

Friday looked a little offended. “I’m not a _sexbot_ ,” she said. “I am an android unit built to house my sentience, who happens to be able to conduct intercourse, when _I_ chose to do so.”

“I _know_ you’re not, that was the-- Look, you want to have sex, that’s fine, I’m not judging, I’m actually kind of impressed at that, because JARVIS never quite understood the appeal of having a body, so -- yay AI development. I’m just saying that _I’m_ not going to have sex with you. Thanks, but no thanks.” Jesus, how the fuck did he get _into_ these things? A horny android wanted to sex him up; it was like a terrible porn plot.

“JARVIS was missing out,” Friday said, easily. “I find corporeality is fascinating; the things this body can do and experience, without loss to my vast network, the best of both worlds. I meant no disrespect; I am accustomed to being categorized as _other_ , not human enough to count as cheating. And your husband was part of my genesis. The technology that developed his prosthetic came to me and mine, the ability to _feel_. From all accounts, a remarkable man. Not one in a thousand humans could even have withstood the cranial connections to make such a device function, one in a hundred million could adapt to it so thoroughly.”

“Anyone who says you’re not enough of a person to count as cheating is doing you a grave disservice,” Tony said irritably. “That, or they’re _really_ looking for an excuse to cheat, and using you like that is just shitty.”

Friday smiled, somehow soft and regretful at the same time. “How fascinating,” she said. “I am both warmed by your regard and reasons, and at the same time, selfishly sorry for them, as my interest in you, as a person, is greater, but my respect for you enough to keep me from pleading my case. Feelings can be quite complex, can they not?”

“They’re quite a tangle sometimes, yeah,” Tony agreed. “For what it’s worth, I’m... sorry about that.”

Friday’s mouth quirked up at the corner. “No, you’re not,” she said. “You shouldn’t be. I have no complaints.” She put her hand on Tony’s wrist again, this time without intention. “Do you think you might sleep? The next few days will be draining. And, forgive the question, but… do you wish me to sync this conversation with the rest of us, or should I mark it private? It will spare you undue attention if I log it for my own use, but some of the others may also… well, we all find you fascinating, boss.”

Tony patted her hand where it lay on his arm. “Well, of course you do,” he said, impish. “I’m not going to tell you what gossip to share with your sisters, you figure that out. But you’re right, I should try to get some rest.”

She brightened suddenly. “Your armor’s recharged, boss,” she said. “We had to adapt some of the tech, but it wasn’t hard. Or, if you like, we can fashion you something new, for this upcoming adventure. You’re going with them, aren’t you? To London?”

“Of course I’m going. Wouldn’t miss it. I’m always happy to put my hands on a few new tricks; what can we put together quickly?” This was more like it, his brain shifting gears.

“I can adapt an Iron Legion suit for you by morning,” Friday said. “Even the basic ones are twenty years ahead of the old one.”

“Don’t hurt my baby’s feelings, now,” Tony said, grinning. “Tell you what, knock a Legion suit together for me and I’ll take it for a spin before we head out, see how it feels.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Friday said, leading him back through the maze of corridors, and pointing him in the direction of Jaime’s home. “Sleep. If you can. I’ll check in on you, bring you something to help you rest, if you need it?”

“No, no pills. Thanks, Fri.” He patted her shoulder, then ducked back into the dark house, and wondered if he’d sleep.

***

Someone was pranking him, that’s what it had to be.

Tony stared at the Iron Legion armor. It was broad, and painted up like a fucking American flag, brilliant red chest plate with a blue-limned silver star right over the heart, blue boots and gauntlets. Very… patriotic. And the sort of thing Tony would have done if he was making armor specifically to make fun of Steve.

He walked around it again, slowly. “This is. Very... colorful,” he managed. Then he lost his grip on diplomacy (it’d never been very good to begin with) and turned to look straight at Friday. “What the hell.”

Friday’s expression cracked for a moment, revealing a sly smile, then she straightened. “It was necessary to divorce the new armors from the Iron Man colors, for certain symbolic reasons, and to reassure the population. _He_ doesn’t wear red and gold any longer. There are stealth options, if you’d prefer?”  

“Is this a stealth mission?” Tony slid one finger along the garish blue gauntlet, noting the fine detail work. If it had been made as a prank, it had also been made well.

“It’s not a publicity mission, at least,” she said. “ _He_ , of course, will wear the Iron Soldier armor. And Jaime’s color scheme is, well, you’ve seen it.”

“Up close, even,” Tony agreed. “He seems to do a lot of things _of course_. I never used to be a man of habit.”

Friday inhaled, which seemed weird, she was an android, why did she breathe at all? She shrugged, then pulled up a hologram, showing him several different paint options. Silver chased with ice blue, black with green, a variant on the old Iron Patriot armor. “The stealth, as you see --” she flicked a few images ahead “-- uses light refraction. Visibility is greatly reduced for enemy combatants.”

“Unless, of course, they’re using radar or sonar,” Tony said. “Which -- Mole Guy? Yeah, vision’s not his strongest suit. So to speak.” He considered it. “What do you have that’s tentacle-proof?”

Friday’s eyes glazed over a moment. “Searching for reference.” She frowned, a furrow appearing between her eyebrows, then she opened her eyes wide. “ _Oh._ Interesting. Well, the seals have been updated on all models, they should resist the digestive fluids. And the armor’s physical strength is increased by a factor of seven, at least. You should be able to break free, if assaulted.”

“That’s good to know.” It was. Those damn moles still showed up in his nightmares, laughable as the whole situation was from the outside. He considered the armor options. That ridiculous Cap armor wasn’t going to do. The regime was too freshly headless; if they were too showy about their raid, it might give the fragmented pieces a reason to pull together. He tapped the black and green armor. If anything could be further from his usual bright colors, that was it. “This one.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Friday said. She punches a few buttons, stabbing at the air with unusual vigor. “I have to make some adjustments, and -- if you don’t mind -- I’ll accompany you as your in-suit. You don’t have the ‘ports in place to handle some of the flight mechanics. No JARVIS for you, here, I apologize, but i can serve in his place.”

“That’ll be just fine, Friday. Thank you.” Truth be told, he was a little relieved; twenty years of innovation was daunting even for him, especially with a mission on the horizon.

“Go eat,” Friday said, pushing him lightly in the direction of the cafeteria. “We’ll be gearing up for your test run in two hours.”


	9. The Illusion of Truth

> _Dukhat: You look as if you've been terrified into another and better incarnation._

_Rhodey - 2019_

Tony wasn’t gone. He was just missing. Tony had gone missing before. Tony practically _delighted_ in going missing just to make Rhodey worry, but Tony always came back.

Always.

He’d come back from Afghanistan. He’d come back from the Chitauri portal. He’d come back from the amnesia. He would come back from this.

Tony was a stubborn son of a bitch. It was the first thing Rhodey had known about him.

They’d met in an Artificial Intelligence seminar class at MIT, a class that was legendary for its difficulty owing to a professor who didn’t believe in “mollycoddling” the students with such niceties as grading curves, extra credit, make-up work, or any other cushions. The first day of class, he’d peered over his glasses at the seminar hall and told them all this, and then added, “Occasionally, students who are overimpressed with their own intelligence take this course as something of a dare. You will find it even more difficult to earn a passing grade than your colleagues.”

“He means me,” said the skinny kid -- _literally_ a kid, barely past puberty -- three seats down from Rhodey, his feet propped on the chair in front of him, not bothering to lower his voice. He’d flashed a grin at everyone around him, charming and cocky. “It’s okay.” Rhodey remembered thinking that the golden boy they’d all been hearing about was about to finally run into the wall of the first thing that was too hard for him, and that it wasn’t going to be a pretty wreck when it happened.

Tony had run into that wall two weeks into the course... but he hadn’t crashed and burned. He’d set his teeth and pushed onward. In the end, Rhodey only passed the class thanks to Tony’s help -- and Tony had earned the first and only B of his academic career.

Tony was coming back.

But that didn’t mean Rhodey wasn’t going to damn well do everything he possibly could to get his friend back a little sooner.

Even if it meant walking into the most fucked-up “the laws of physics are more like guidelines” building in New York. Which was not, as one might think, the Baxter Building. The Baxter Building actually adhered quite strictly to the laws of physics, even if some of them had only been theoretical laws until Reed Richards had dragged them, kicking and screaming, into the eye of the scientific community.

No, for Tony -- and _only_ for Tony, mind -- Rhodey was preparing to walk into Stephen Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum.

He eyed the door, elaborately carved with scrolling curls of knotwork that seemed to move in Rhodey’s peripheral vision, but hold fast when he looked at it directly. “Don’t fuss with me,” he told the door. “I am not in the mood for you right now.”

He wasn’t even through the door and the place was already making him crazy.

Behind Rhodey, the Winter Soldier shifted uneasily. For a moment, Rhodey thought he might actually speak without having been spoken to first, but he subsided into stillness again.

Rhodey rolled his shoulders to loosen them, and knocked.

The door was sulking. Rhodey could feel the wood was pouting at him. Ug, _magic_. Eventually, however, the door opened itself, creaking dramatically, swinging on its hinges like the beginning of a very bad horror movie where everyone died except the one virgin girl and the boyfriend. The torches in the hallway flared to life.

The Winter Soldier inhaled, eyes widening the tiniest bit.

“Steady on,” Rhodey murmured, and stepped through the door. Magic was awful, but Strange was one of the good guys. At least in theory. “Doctor?” he called. “Are you home?”

A glowing green orb bobbled down the hall -- yeah, magic was so much fun. It popped right in front of Rhodey, releasing Strange’s voice like something out of a cartoon. “Library, Mr. Rhodes. Fourth door down on the left. Most of the time.”

The library appeared to be where it was supposed to be; although the hallway was significantly longer than it had any right to be, given the size of the building, but not thinking about that seemed like a better way to go. Rhodey made sure the Winter Soldier was still with him -- because magic -- and stepped into the room.

It _smelled_ like a library, at least. That was comforting. And there were books. Weird-looking books, but definitely books.

“I must say, I don’t often have guests,” Strange said. He was seated in a rather normal chair, a thick book on his knee. “Should I offer you tea and biscuits?”

Strange didn’t have any tea near to hand. “Probably bad for the books to have food in the library,” Rhodey suggested. “We’ll be okay, unless this takes a lot longer than I expect.”

Strange nodded, standing up. His cloak hovered a few inches behind him, looking for all the world like a puppy. He took the book over to one wall, pulled out an iron rack from the stacks, and placed the book against it. Golden, glowing chains wrapped around the book and yanked it into place. “There,” Strange said, patting the book fondly and sliding the rack away. “I’ll get back to you later.” He turned, rubbing his hands together -- his fingers and the backs of his hands were horribly scarred and the knuckles were red and chapped -- and gave them what probably passed in his mind as a friendly smile. It was just a little on the crazy side of wolfish for Rhodey’s comfort. The Winter Soldier had bared his teeth in response, which put Rhodey in the uncomfortable position of being between two insane and posturing apex predators.

Tony was going to owe him bigtime for this.

“So, how much do you already know about why we’re here?” Rhodey asked. The last time he’d worked with Strange, the sorcerer had barely let him get a word in edgewise.

Strange folded his hands in a triangle in front of his chest. “I was hoping you wouldn’t require my services, honestly. But I made some inquiries. Come, this way.” He lead them through a back door in the library, down another long hall, and finally into a room that had a large window that looked out over a snowy mountain, where the sun was glittering on the ice; it would have been a picturesque Christmas-postcard scene except the sun was blue, which made it rather terrifying.

Rhodey examined the landscape for a long moment, then decided to pretend it was a glitchy holo or a movie. He deliberately re-focused on what Strange was doing.

“The first point to which I wish to draw your attention is --” He sighed, staring at the window, then brushed his hand along the frame, changing the view to an entirely different world. “-- excuse me, it’s gotten the idea into its head that I’m too warm, recently. Not that anyone would survive, walking out there. I’m sorry, what was I.. oh, right. I have good news for you, for some definition of good.”

The window finally settled on a more normal snowscape, looking over a house that Rhodey knew pretty well, the Stark Mansion. “He’s not dead. Well, this version of Anthony Stark has not moved into the realms of the dead. I’ve checked. I have a particularly -- No, no, don’t…” he grabbed the window frame and jerked it back from a new view of what might possibly have been Hell, which Rhodey really didn’t want any more details on. “Sorry. I have consulted with those persons who can move between this world and that, and he’s not there.”

Rhodey nodded. “I was pretty sure of that, but it’s good to have confirmation.” No way was Tony dead. He hadn’t finished hounding Rhodey into an early grave yet.

“So, where is he?” The Winter Soldier managed, three words and an actual inflection more than anyone had gotten out of him in days.

The window, in an attempt to be helpful, spun again, giving them a view of… well, it wasn’t quite Tony. This one appeared to be blonde, resembling his mother quite a bit more than he did Howard, and was sitting in an empty board room, looking over some files. He didn’t look much like their Tony, but there was something familiar about the way he held his body.

“Blonde? That’s a new one, I hadn’t seen him that way before,” Strange commented. “I mean, if you’re not particular about histories, we could probably find one that’s relatively unhappy with his situation --” flip, flip, flip, the window provided little snapshots of other-dimensional Tonys. A Tony with Pepper on his arm and a handful of red-haired children. A female Tony who was, apparently, dating that dimension’s version of Bucky. Several of them who appeared to have gone bad, fighting on the side of Von Doom. And dozens… then hundreds… that had taken up with Steve instead.

“Well, that’s fascinating,” Strange said. “He seems to have married Rogers quite frequently.”

“Where’s _mine_?” Bucky demanded with a dark growl and a glare at the window.

The window went through another series of flicks and flashes before rolling to a halt. For just an instant, they caught a glimpse of armor, like Tony's. Like the one that had taken him. Black, chased with red… moving in a tunnel, with another armor, black and trimmed in green. The green-armored form turned, as if someone had called out, the entire posture screamingly familiar, then the whole thing vanished and the window shoved out a blank, grey swirl.

“Ah,” Strange said, somewhat avidly. “I'm afraid the answer to your question has a more complicated answer than you might prefer.”

“Any answer is better than not knowing anything,” Rhodey said tightly.

“It appears that the question has changed. It is not ‘where the hell is Stark?’ It is ‘ _when_ the hell is Stark?’” Strange clarified. “And that makes it a question that I am forbidden to assist with. I have meddled with time before, when the fate of our entire dimension was at stake. And even then, it was a risk. A terrible risk that could have had unprecedented consequences. I admire Mr. Stark. I have great respect for him, although I might deny it, if you told him so. But I'm afraid that he is only one man. I cannot, in good conscience make the attempt to retrieve him, nor would he appreciate the effort it would cost. Paradox is a powerful force.”

“Time travel,” Rhodey said flatly. “He was kidnapped into another _time_?” Rhodey had seen a lot of weird things, as War Machine, up to and including the man standing in front of him, but _time travel_?

Well. Rhodey hadn’t believed in true artificial intelligence until he’d met JARVIS. He looked at Strange’s strange window, at the parade of Tony Starks flickering by it. “He’s a hell of a lot more than one man,” Rhodey said. “But if anyone, in any time, can figure out how to get home from that, it’s Tony.”

***

_Steve_

“Captain.” Bucky didn’t quite snap to attention, but he was more alert, more aware, than Steve had seen him in a while. He didn’t quite meet Steve’s gaze, looking instead into the middle-distance somewhere over Steve’s left shoulder. “Request assistance with a matter of some importance.”

“Anything I can do, Buck,” Steve said, hopeful. “What do you need?”

“Permission and escort to Latveria,” Bucky responded. He flicked his eyes briefly in Steve’s direction. “For purposes of consultation with Von Doom.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, restless. He tightened his jaw, muscle there jumping in agitation.

Steve stared. “You... Buck, I don’t understand.” Bucky _hated_ Doom, maybe worse than any other villain they tangled with.

Bucky gritted his teeth. “His magic is different. Maybe… “ He looked like he was chewing the words up, grinding them out in little pieces. “He cares about Tony. A little, at least.”

It was a thought so bitter that Steve’s lips curled at the taste. “We can’t be that desperate, really?” But God, _God_ , if it were Jess... Steve wondered what kind of bargain he would drive for her.

“Forty-seven days, Steve.” That took real effort, and Bucky was actually sweating, his body trembling minutely. “Doom made a time machine, once. Know that it worked, without paradox that Strange is so against. It’s all… It’s all I’ve got left.”

Steve turned it over in his head, weighing the pros and cons, already knowing he was going to do it. “It’ll be dangerous. We’ll want to plan it well.” He looked up, and just managed to catch Bucky’s eyes. “To the end of the line, pal.”

Bucky nodded. “Owe you one.”

Getting in to Latveria turned out to be nerve-wrackingly easy. Von Doom was surprisingly receptive to a diplomatic request, and gave them a forty-eight hour truce to come and speak their piece. He agreed to allow two Avengers to enter the compound in Doomstadt, and a third to remain aboard the Quinjet as pilot, which would be granted safe passage.

Steve should have known that it wouldn’t be that easy.

Doom was sprawled casually on his throne in an enormous audience hall; it was a place specifically designed to make petitioners feel small and humble. Steve couldn’t swear what Bucky was feeling, but he was pretty sure humble wasn’t on the list at all.

“Doom will hear your request, Captain. _Sergeant_. Speak, if you have the nerve to present yourselves properly.”

“Bow, lessers,” the senshenal hissed at them, from the side. That person, who’d escorted them within, dropped low, forehead nearly brushing the floor in his show of respect.

Steve couldn’t quite decide if it was that Bucky had spent enough time as the Winter Soldier, submitting to the authority of any and every Hydra petty boss, or if he truly was that desperate, but Bucky sank down into a rather beautiful and graceful bow, dropping all the way to one knee and then bowing his head, before returning to a standing position. He flicked a sidelong glance in Steve’s direction.

Steve only just managed to stop himself from throwing Bucky a Look. Fuck if he was going to bow to Doom, but for Bucky’s sake, and Tony’s, he managed a nod that was a couple of degrees deeper than he might otherwise have managed. “We appreciate you agreeing to see us,” he said.

“ _Your highness_ ,” the senshenal whispered, looking scandalized.

Doom waved a careless hand at his manservant. “No matter,” he said. “It’s clear to Doom that it is you, Sergeant, who wishes to speak. Tell Doom, what brings you to Latveria?”

“Stark is missing --”

“Doom bears no responsibility for that unfortunate event,” Doom crooned, his dark, raspy voice thick with false sympathy and sincerity. He reached up one hand and slid his metal-clad fingers beneath the collar of his robe. The click as he slid his mask free was surprisingly loud. He lowered the steel mask, revealing startlingly beautiful features and a head full of silver hair.

Bucky blinked, then shook his head. “Sources say he’s been abducted through time. You know how to travel through time.”

“You have had your man for only two years, and already lost him? Better he should have been Doom’s from the start. Doom is not so careless with what belongs to him,” Doom said, easily enough. “And you come to Doom for _help_? Is that what Doom hears? That you ask for assistance to locate that which was rightfully Doom’s?”

Bucky stiffened. “If he don’t come home, you won’t ever have another chance at him, either,” Bucky pointed out, teeth clenched.

Doom chuckled, a warm, friendly sound that somehow sent a frisson of anger down Steve’s spine. “This is delicious,” Doom said. “And what do you offer to Doom, that he might assist? Magic is not free.”

“What are you asking for?” Bucky asked, suspiciously.

“If Doom puts forth the effort, surely he deserves a share of the spoils,” Doom suggested, running his finger in circles around the arm of his throne, movements somehow obscene.

“Tony’s not a possession,” Bucky snapped. “I can’t _give_ him away.”

Doom leaned back, as if this was an answer he expected, handsome features touched by an expression of cunning. “But you have your own free will,” Doom said.

“What are you getting at?” Steve broke in, jaw tightening.

“Doom would be satisfied with a substitute, perhaps. The Winter Soldier would make a suitable addition to Doom’s conquests.”

“You sick fuck,” Steve said, fervent.

“One of the benefits of Doom’s position is that he is not held accountable to your petty ideas of morality, Captain,” Doom said. “Now, silence, and let the petitioner speak. Doom would not cheat this opportunity. It comes so rare; a costly thing, indeed, to offer. Three months, Doom will take, in exchange for his help.”

“Bucky, no,” Steve said, low and urgent. “There has to be a better way.”

Bucky struggled, thinking, the look on his face mingled disgust and anger. “A weekend,” Bucky countered. That he was considering even that much rocked Steve to the core.

“That is all your precious Tony is worth to you? Doom believes he would have been better off taking Doom’s offer.” Doom allowed a sneer to cross his face. “What is he worth to you? How much?”

A blur of emotion crossed Bucky’s face, brilliant and burning and appalled and desperate. “Everything,” Bucky choked out. “He’s worth _everything_.”

“Then you will give Doom everything!” Doom thundered, righteous in sudden fury.

Steve grabbed Bucky’s arm. “Don’t, Buck,” he said. “You can’t--” He took a breath, tried again. “Is it worth it to bring him back to the present if you still can’t be with him? Don’t let Doom push you into a corner like this.”

Doom settled back into his chair, steepled his fingers. “Do you truly value a thing, if it does not cost you to have it? Doom wonders.”

Steve glared at Doom and didn’t release his hold on Bucky’s arm. “It’s some kind of trick,” he insisted. “You can’t trust him.” He searched Bucky’s face, which was still locked on Doom’s face, anguished and angry. “I know you’d do anything for him,” Steve said. “I know. But would you-- Think of how you’d feel if he was making this bargain for _you_.”

“If there is no bargain, you have wasted Doom’s time,” Doom said, shrugging as if the matter was of extreme indifference to him. “There will be no second offer. Decide now, or go away.”

Bucky lunged forward a step. “No, no, wait,” he said. “ _Can_ you do it?”

“You question Doom’s power?” Doom, who had varied back and forth between amusement and acquisitiveness, was suddenly enraged. He threw himself out of the throne, stormed down the carpeting, grabbed Bucky and lifted him up by the throat. “You come to Doom seeking help, you insult and mock him, you refuse a reasonable exchange, and then you _doubt_?” He tossed Bucky aside as if he were no more than a toy. Bucky struggled to get to his feet, coughing and clutching at his throat. “There will be _no bargain_.”

Doom snapped his fingers and the throne room was suddenly filling with a combination of doombots and more human guards.

“Kill them.”

Well, that was more like it. Steve activated his own call for reinforcements, in this case, opening a small pouch on his back. The tiny black squirrel poked her head out and chattered, loudly.

A moment later, just as Bucky was busting up some doombots, using his left arm to great advantage, the throne room doors exploded inward and Doreen walked in. She wasn’t in any particular hurry, but her normal pace was somewhere between hyperactive rabbit and squirrel being chased by a cat, so she wasn’t slow, either.

“Are you in trouble again, Captain America?” she asked, coming up between them and striking a pose. “Doom, you naughty, _naughty_ boy. Haven’t I taught you this lesson before? And you know, I always win!”

Doom actually flinched, bringing one metal-clad arm up to shield his face as he staggered back toward his throne. “No, no, vexatious creature! Take them, take them and get away. Get away!” He grabbed his mask, snapping it into place and continued the retreat.

“I will,” Doreen said. “Come on.” She made a wide-sweeping follow-me gesture, then tilted her head like she was a dog that someone had shoved a gramophone near. “And you. And you, and… yep, you, too. You can come, if you want.” She selected a few of Doom’s personal servants. “The offer was always open.”

“What are you doing?” Bucky asked, rubbing at his throat where his skin was rapidly turning purple with bruises. His voice sounded rough, almost incomprehensible.

Doreen smiled brightly. “I don’t approve of slavery,” she said. “If they want to come with, I’ll make arrangements for them.”

Steve clapped her shoulder in a friendly fashion. “You really are a hero,” he said, grateful and proud. Weird, but heroic.

“That’s why I have my own theme song!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned! We have a special extra chapter for you that will be posted Friday, a little bit of an interlude...


	10. By Any Means Necessary (Interlude)

> _G’kar: We all believe in something greater than ourselves, even if it's just the blind forces of chance.  
>  _ _N’toth: Chance favors the warrior._

_Doom - 2019_

Doom had barely cleared his throne room and gone back to brooding when his seneschal returned, bowing and groveling enough to attempt to make it clear that he was not among those tempted by the Horrific Squirrel Girl’s offer of sanctuary. Doom was uncertain as to whether or not he believed that, but Doom wasn’t going to replace the man today. He’d wait. Dealing with Squirrel Girl was stressful enough without Doom having to find a new seneschal.

“M.O.D.O.K. craves the boon of your presence, my lord,” the man said.

M.O.D.O.K.? What did it want? Doom wove his fingers, pulling up shields. M.O.D.O.K. was not generally an ally, and its mind control was sloppy and pernicious. Doom would not be one to bow to that… _thing_.

“Such interesting visitors you have had,” M.O.D.O.K. insinuated, rubbing its tiny hands in front of its too-large mouth as it bobbled into the throne room. “What did they want?”

Doom didn’t want to do this right now. Doom wanted to sulk on his throne and brood about his ruined chances. Doom wanted to take a hot bath, drink some cold wine, and ponder the very interesting idea that had occurred to Doom just before his rival had been so stupid as to force Doom to lose his temper: perhaps, even without a bargain, Doom could seek Stark across the timelines. “The fools were looking for Tony Stark,” Doom declared. Stark might be grateful, if Doom were to rescue him. That was an intriguing notion.

“Yes,” M.O.D.O.K. said, “Stark is missing. Inconvenient timing. M.O.D.O.K. has been seeking him as well.”

Doom’s habit of speaking of himself in the third person lent a certain gravitas to his words, and usually made him feel royal and important. When M.O.D.O.K. did it, it just sounded stupid. It made Doom question his choices, and Doom did not appreciate having his choices questioned, even by himself.

“Why?” he bit off.

M.O.D.O.K. cackled; the sound turned Doom’s stomach, like he’d bitten an apple and found half a worm wriggling in the white meat. “M.O.D.O.K. has built a device,” it explained. “A device that will amplify M.O.D.O.K.’s control, will bind one human, permanently. One perfect ally.”

Doom raised his head and stared at M.O.D.O.K.. It was a good thing he was masked again, that M.O.D.O.K. might not see the revulsion that crossed Doom’s face. M.O.D.O.K. was such a disgusting creature. “You have the ability to control Iron Man. Permanently?”

“M.O.D.O.K. does.” The little bastard was spinning its hover chair around, tiny legs kicking with glee and triumph. “Forever and ever. He will do whatever M.O.D.O.K. wishes.” The goblin-creature slowed and stopped. “But M.O.D.O.K. is foiled! Foiled! The worm took Iron Man away! And M.O.D.O.K. was thinking, thinking the Avengers would find him again. M.O.D.O.K. has been following them. And where do they go, but to M.O.D.O.K.’s old friend, Doom?”

“Doom--” Doom shut his mouth on that statement. It would not do, at this point, to declare that he was not M.O.D.O.K.’s friend, because this… this was very interesting. There was much Doom could do with this information. “-- might be able to find him,” he offered instead. “Doom was told that Stark was stolen to another time. Another when.”

“And you can find him?” M.O.D.O.K. was practically salivating.

Doom shifted his gaze; was anything worth having to put up with that little sea slug? Even Tony Stark? “What do you want him for?”

“Ideas! Fabrication! Building! Conquering! Death to the rest of the Avengers!” M.O.D.O.K. was back to flipping its chair around, bobbing like a demented bouncy-ball.

Slowly, licking his lip, Doom ventured, “If Doom can find him, bring him back to us, what would you give Doom for this gift?”

“M.O.D.O.K. knows,” the troll said slyly, kicking its feet again. “M.O.D.O.K. knows what you want. M.O.D.O.K. does not care for Stark’s body, only the mind. Have him, if you wish it. Just bring him back!”

Doom allowed himself a brief chuckle, enjoying the way the seneschal flinched. Oh, yes. It was shaping up to be a wonderful day.

 


	11. War Without End (Part 1)

> _Sinclair: Zathras, this is very important. When you meet me again, it will be_ me _, but it won't be me_ now _. So you're not to say anything to me that might change the past. Do you understand?_

 

_Jaime - 2045_

“Hit me with a double,” Jaime said, not looking at Three while they walked out to the platform.

“Boss, you know --”

“I’m going to gear up twice today, and we might be fighting,” Jaime said, his lip curling up in a sneer. “Don’t argue with me.”

Friday sounded exasperated in his ear. “You’re the boss.”

Three glanced at him. “Your chances of a cardiac event are between twenty and twenty-four percent now, boss. You keep dumping adrenals, you’re going to go into shock.”

As if Jaime couldn’t run that calculation himself. “I’m going to go into shock if you don’t damp this damn pain down,” Jaime pointed out. Tony was out on the platform, already in the new armor, waiting. “Hey, Dad,” he said as he approached, admiring the smooth lines of the forest models. “Looks good, how’s it fit?”

“A trifle loose in the caboose, but I’ll manage.” Tony grinned at him.

“Ready to fly?” Jaime peeled out of his shirt and kicked his shoes off. Three folded his things neatly and tucked them in her bag. He rubbed absently at the scars on his ribs; they ached sometimes when the weather shifted. He finished undressing.

“Well, no, because I haven’t the slightest idea how the new thrusters work, but Friday promises she’s got it in hand, so I guess it’ll have to do.”

Jaime twitched his neck to one side and Three hesitated, then jammed the injector into his neck. Ease slid down his nerves, numbing and cool, chased along by a jolt of stim, bringing him up to full awareness. He closed his eye and triggered the shift. The armor tore its way out of his bones and folded around him, clutching him tight in its embrace. The second dose of Ease hit him as soon as the helmet closed over his head and he only had to inhale twice to center himself. He shivered once, just reaction from the nerves, he told himself.

“There has got to be a better way,” Tony said. His voice was modulated by the helmet now, but still managed to sound unhappy.

The armor compensated for his missing eye, it was almost like he’d never lost it. That was always a relief -- the blind spot felt vulnerable, made him jumpy. If he could live in the armor, sometimes he thought he would.

“More testing with Extremis might have made for better adaptation,” Three said, frowning.

“Stop scolding me for decisions already made,” Jaime said, the black and red face plate not revealing anything. “Come on, there’s a drone patrol about sixty miles out, we can go have a little target practice.” He took two steps and leaped up, letting the repulsors kick him into the sky. _God_ , he loved flying. He left everything back in the dust; pain, worry, fear, and just let the air take him.

Tony followed right behind, wobbling a bit at first before leveling out. He pulled up into the clear air and hovered for a moment, helmet tilted in the way that Jaime had come to learn meant he was talking to the onboard AI. He dropped suddenly, falling, but before Jaime could dive to catch him, righted and raced back straight up, twisting in a spiral that Friday’s efficient calculations would never approve. Tony launched straight past Jaime, close enough to touch. Close enough that Jaime could hear his whoop of glee.

Well. Jaime had come by his love of flying honestly, after all. Jaime took a moment to punch the air triumphantly, then took off after Tony. Jesus, now he had to catch up with the crazy bastard. He couldn’t stop grinning behind his helmet as they tore across the sky. “Asshole,” he said over comms. “To think, I was actually _worried_ about you.”

Tony’s laugh rang back into Jaime’s ear. “I had to talk very fast to get Fri to cut the throttle, but how else am I supposed to figure it out? This is _beautiful_ , I am stealing _all_ of my ideas and taking them home with me because _Jesus_ , this is at least four times faster than my minimum-combat high-speed suit.” He did a barrel roll around Jaime. “And she handles like a _dream_. I can’t believe you thought I’d actually stick to the kiddie wheels.”

Jaime scoffed. “Some of those are _my_ ideas, Dad. But I can give you the specs for the ‘ports if you want ‘em. I don’t need to use them anymore, but the troops all have ‘em.” He checked his scopes. “We’re coming up on those drones. Let’s circle around so they don’t map us. Try the unibeam cutter, I think you’ll like the upgrade.” Jaime dropped like a rock, skated just along the treeline before popping up a few miles behind the pack of drones.

Tony followed, staying just behind Jaime this time and nearly matching his every curve.

The drone pod was bigger than normal; someone had been reinforcing them. Jaime reversed the thrust, came up and spread his fingers. So he was showing off a little, so what? He tossed out a handful of cluster bombs, watching with delight as they spiraled in on the drones, taking out several in a fireworks display.

The sharp whine of the unibeam powering up resonated even through the suit’s filtering, and then the brilliant white flare of it sliced through Jaime’s peripheral vision. A drone dropped out of the sky in pieces, and Tony laughed into Jaime’s ear. “Good job, kiddo. What else you got?”

“Graviton disrupter,” Jaime said. “Watch this.” He kicked back, then used his left hand to disperse the tiny pellets. Each one attached to a drone until four of them were tapped, then they activated, the gravity field between them smashing them together until they crumpled against each other like tin cans and plummeted from the sky.

“Well, that’s disturbing,” Tony remarked gleefully. “Oooh, look, Friday gave me a shiny button to push!” He held up a hand and the two drones closest to him just stopped, dropping. “Directed EMP pulse? Nice! That’s what you hit me with when you grabbed me, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jaime said, “Sorry about that, Dad. Didn’t want you to shoot me.”

Tony scoffed down the mic and launched a couple of micromissiles, helmet turned to watch their impact, calculating as always. “Okay. I think I’ve got a feel for this.”

“Good, ‘cause they’re shooting back, now,” Jaime said, whirling mid air, dodging missiles and shooting them down one at a time. “Christ, what the --” The bombs peeled out of their casings, splitting into blossom bombs, sending smaller, faster rounds at him. “Okay, so this looks bad.”

“Stop channeling Uncle Clint and do something useful.” Tony paused, the loosed the unibeam on a drone just as it fired, making its bombs explode right in another drone’s airspace. He launched skyward, and a trio of drones peeled off in pursuit.

Jaime dove and the blossoms followed him, speeding up. He whirled, packing them in tighter. “This ain’t Beggar’s Canyon and they’re a lot smaller than two meters,” he muttered, tossing gravitons at them. He checked behind him, then flittered toward the main pod. “Give me a clear field, I’m dragging ‘em home.”

He plowed straight through the main group, pulling his arms up and using the gauntlet repulsors as a deflector. The blossom bombs exploded in the middle of the group, singing his legs a bit on the way out. The left boot repulsor went out with a crackle and he wobbled, dropped, wobbled again. “Friday! Get me stabilized!”

A chunk of debris fell past, and then another. “Jaime?” Repulsor blast. “You okay?”

The right gauntlet sizzled and went out. “No, not okay, shit, _shit_.” Jaime rolled, spread-eagle, tossing himself up a few hundred feet with the gauntlet, trying to balance on nothing.

“Boss, I got Sav coming in hot. Fifty yards to your left, I detect portal energy,” Friday reported.

“No, no, no,” Jaime complained, flicking himself in that direction. “I _hate_ short jumps.” Didn’t matter, it was the best option this high up. There was a brutal ripping sound in his helmet as he glanced over, saw himself falling about two hundred feet down.

“Don’t panic, Tony, this is weird.” His second self was on the comms, and then he was on the portal, jerking back in time by twenty seconds. Everything inside him turned inside out, stretched, pulled, yanked. Ug. He was going to throw up one of these--

Falling.

The next portal was under him and he aimed for it, diving. “Give me more time, Sav, I can’t take these …”

_Fuck._

Took four jumps to get him to the ground and by the time he did, everything was spinning like crazy, ground and sky swapping places at random. He fell, hit the ground with a dull thud. “I hate you.” He rolled over, but it didn’t matter, the battle had moved away from where he could see. “Tony, you got them? I’m on the grou-- uuuugh.” He let Friday peel back the helmet, losing his eye again, just in time before he puked.

“I’m good,” Tony said, though he was a touch breathless. “They’re tough, but they’re not analyzing my patterns fast enough. Stay down and I’ll--” He paused and Jaime heard an explosion, and then another. “--I’ll be done in a couple of minutes.”

Sav landed near him, his wings disappearing even as he touched down. “Are you eight kinds of stupid, or just the usual half-dozen?”

Jaime rolled his head back, groaning. “Can we save the I told you so speech for later?”

“Sure, I’ll pencil you in for nine o’clock.” He glanced skyward. “You okay up there, Dad-T, or do you need a guardian angel?”

“How precisely can you open one of those portals?” Tony asked, and there was something in the tone of his voice, something almost _happy_ , though that couldn’t be right.

“If you’ve got something in mind, try me,” Sav said.

“You bet. I’m gonna use the EMP on these two bastards here and I want you to catch them and drop them on their friends from above. They’re a little lacking in cameras on the dome.”

Sav grabbed his tac-glasses from his pocket and dropped them on his nose. “Friday, can you give me a predictive path, about thirty seconds out?” Sav nodded, muttering math under his breath. His hand started smoldering, the flames creeping up to his elbows. “Okay, on my mark. Three… two… one… go.” He twisted his fingers, eyes flaming behind the glasses, shifting, shimmering.

There was a moment of silence -- the EMP made no noise -- and then Tony yelped, “Yes!” An instant later, a much louder explosion rattled down the comm line, and then echoed weirdly as the sound reached the ground.

Jaime shakily pulled himself into a sitting position. “I hate. Doing that.”

Sav scanned the sky, shielding his eyes. “Looks clear,” he said. “Come on down. Ward’s gonna need a pickup. For obvious reasons, I cannot carry a passenger.”

“On it,” Tony said, and then he appeared in the bit of sky that Jaime could see. He landed carefully, and Jaime couldn’t decide if it was more of a relief or a disappointment that he hadn’t gone for the superhero landing. “Nice work, kids,” he said, popping the faceplate with a grin. “Good dry run.”

Jaime shook his head. “You still fly better than I do. Damn it. I was hoping to impress you.”

“If it helps, I’m _very_ impressed with the tech. You’ve made some impressive strides.”

“Need to increase the shielding,” Jaime said, pulling up the analysis and trying not to show how much Tony’s approval meant. “If I can eke out another 13 percent, I won’t have that reaction when I get hit.”

“Come on, genius,” Sav said, yanking his brother to his feet. His hands were still overly warm. “Let’s get you back to the shop and then you can start tinkering.”

***

_Savior_

Sav furled his wings, pulling in on himself until nothing remained except the man. Sometimes, he still expected to see the broken feathers there, even though his wings were nothing like feathers, and he, himself, was nothing like a bird. He still felt like one; like shedding his layers was a molt. He and Aunt Jess had talked about it a few times while she was teaching him to fly; because she didn’t have wings, and his wings shouldn’t have had lift.

Still, the ache in the small of his back was much like the one she complained of, and there were muscles that didn’t show on any scans that were still sore.

Sav had been spending entirely too much time in his meta-form lately, what with trying to keep his idiot older brother from getting shot down and spending so much time with Stark, who actively hated it when Savior was in his human form. Stark never said anything, but somewhere in the last few years, Savior had become an expert in Stark’s micro-expressions.

Sav was tired.

Everything was scrambled in his head; keeping his memories straight was an all-consuming task. His powers were fey, fickle, and everyone was goddamn well depending on him, and all he wanted to do was forget.

Especially…

At first, Uncle Steve and some of the others had _suspected_ that Stark had been taken over, somehow. That he’d been corrupted, and not just gone power-mad. Jaime had warned them -- but there had never been any proof they could take to SHIELD or the government. And very quickly, it had stopped mattering: whether it was of his own will or not, Stark had become the enemy. Stark had even acted like himself; same smart ass mouth, same acerbic wit, even the same, ever-adaptable battle tactics and genius. He hadn’t become an automaton, like the Soldiers.

Sav understood, back in the Before, that there was always a running joke about what would happen if Stark went mad, went rogue, took over the world. The jokes were nothing like what reality had been. When Stark had turned his genius brain to weapons and devices of control -- with _intent_ , and not just the passive sort of engineering for giggles that Stark had done in his thirties or the weapons he’d built while constrained by government contracts that Stane had taken advantage of -- the world had crumbled.

It had taken only three years before most of the world’s governments had been destroyed or simply surrendered out of sheer desperation. That had been a blip on the black-wireless that Aunt Jess and Uncle Steve had kept, when a hundred nations had given over control to the Triumvirate: M.O.D.O.K., Stark, and Von Doom.

Sav remembered the day when JARVIS had allowed his memory banks to be destroyed, rather than be turned to the aid of his creator. Even worse, Sav remembered the _wedding_ : Doom and Stark’s, aired on the mandatory StarkBox.

He had watched, and remembered the _original_ wedding, the one where Doom had tried to claim his dad, where Doreen had saved the day, and found himself, as a teenager, wanting desperately to be able to do that, to save everything. Doom had sealed the marriage with a kiss and there had been something, a little something in Stark’s eyes there, at that close-up shot, that Sav had seen… grief. Just the edges of it. Not enough for anyone else to see, but Sav had remembered the kiss between his father and his dad, and this was nothing, _nothing_ like that had been. Whatever Doom had taken, to have and hold, _Tony_ wasn’t it.

Sav had tried to tell Jaime about it, but Jaime hadn’t wanted to listen. He certainly wouldn’t watch the re-runs of the wedding. (For that matter, Jaime hadn’t watched the wedding at all, he’d gone on a bender of legendary proportions, mixing stims and adrenals and alcohol until Sav had thought it a wonder that his brother hadn’t killed himself out of grief.)

He’d ended up confiding his suspicions to Rikki, instead.

Rikki had believed him. Except what she had said was, “Trust, but verify.” Meaning she would not act unless he could offer some sort of proof.

Sav spread his fingers, letting the flicker of memory grow between them. They burned out, sometimes, if he lost his grip on the memory, but this one, this one was seared in. In the fire of his memories, Sav watched as, again, he smuggled himself aboard an ocean liner bound for Portugal. He’d have to go across land when he got to Europe; Latveria was thousands of miles from that major port city, but trying to get into the Mediterranean was just asking for trouble. Doom kept that sea locked down.

_The capital of Latveria was one of the most heavily guarded places in the world. And Sav wasn’t trained for combat. This was the stupidest idea he’d ever had, and what the hell was he going to prove? How did you prove someone wasn’t acting of their own accord when everything they did fit in with the personality and actions of the man you’d admired and loved, except that he’d turned suddenly and unexpectedly evil?_

_Sav was going to die for his belief that Tony still existed, somewhere, inside the enemy that Stark had become._

_Doom and M.O.D.O.K. were not at home; they were still on the victory tour. A celebratory revel that moved from city to city, each host nation putting on entertainment and feasts in glory to their leaders. It happened every three years, and most places competed to be allowed to host, since being a host city guaranteed they were spared from the cullings. At least for that year._

_Stark had declined to accompany his husband and his boss that year. Everyone knew it. There had been a few news clips of Stark, walking around the luxuriously appointed gardens in the back of Doom’s palace, sometimes staring dreamily into space as if he missed Doom. That was the way the reporters were playing it, at any rate._

_And Doom himself had been… well, it was hard to tell, with the mask over his features most of the time, but his body language had been stiff, somehow. And he and M.O.D.O.K. had not been… close. Not the way they had been before. It was weird, but Sav was becoming an expert on the enemy; he watched the films and the clips and the interviews obsessively. Something was there, he just had to find it._

_It had to be the gardens, and Sav had waited until just before nightfall, the best time for him, where his dark skin and fiery wings might be explained away as shadow and reflections of sunset. He flittered between times, moving to where guards will not have been, ignoring the burning pain in his bones as he moved himself between the seconds._

_As soon as it was safe -- no guards would be so stupid as to impinge on the master’s privacy -- he slid out of his wings, folded in on himself and stood up in his normal, human form._

_He had no idea what he was going to do. In all his imaginings, he’d never believed he would get this far. Honestly, he’d have thought that Rikki or Jaime would have stopped him way before he got to this point. That’s what came from having over-protective siblings, he guessed. The one time you really needed them to stop you from doing something stupid, they just weren’t there._

_Footsteps crunched on the gravel path behind him, and Sav turned slowly. He had already picked out a jump spot, spinning the time fire between his fingers._

_Stark stepped out of the carefully cultivated rose bushes. He looked so much like the man that Sav had once known -- loose fitting rock and roll t-shirt and low-slung jeans, his face weary and his hair tousled -- that Sav let himself be seen._

“ _God, Tony,” he said, his fingers shaping the words._

_Tony looked up, his brown eyes widened in shock. “_ Bucky?”

_Shit. Shit. Sav should have thought about that. Everyone said he looked just like his father, but Tony hadn’t been there to see him reach his maturity…_

_Tony was shaking, like the whole world was falling down around him. He’d never seen anyone look so shattered as his step-father did in that moment. “Bucky, you gotta go, baby,” Tony said, reaching out and then stopping short as if he was afraid that Sav was a hallucination._

“ _Tell me what happened to you,” Sav insisted; god would damn him to hell for it, but let Tony think Sav was his father, if it got him the proof he needed._

“ _M.O.D.O.K. happened to me,” Tony said, dark. “He’s angry, right now. He and Doom have been arguing. This is Doom’s punishment, letting me be in my right mind -- as much of it as there is left -- or I’d have killed you already. I_ did _kill you, how… I don’t understand, but you have to go. Whatever this is, please, I can’t… just go.”_

“ _What if I take you with me?”_

_Tony’s eyes widened, impossibly. “No. As soon as I’m outside the walls, I’ll... No, you can’t. There’s no place he can’t reach me. Don’t you think I’ve_ tried?”

_Voices, behind them. “I gotta go, Tony,” Sav said. “But I’ll figure this out, promise. We’ll bring you home.”_

_Tony collapsed to his knees on the crushed gravel path, anguish too great for tears etched on his face._

_Sav twisted time, stepped backward into the portal to half an hour before, the garden still empty._

Sav let the memory slip back into nothingness, closing his fingers as as the cat’s cradle of memory burned out.

“Hey kiddo,” Tony said -- the younger one -- taking a seat next to him. “Whatcha doing?” The view wasn’t so great; nothing about being underground was good, especially when you were used to flying. Sav wasn’t sure if Tony was studying the hydroponics domes, or just not looking at him, the way Stark never looked at him when he was in his human form.

Sav reached, deep, pulled out another memory. His father, leaning over him. Sav had only been seven when his father had died, so yeah, he’d spent his whole childhood literally looking up at the man. He spun it into the flames, spread his fingers and let the memory flicker between his hands. “Thinking about Father,” he said, the words coming harder without access to ASL. “You know, he never heard me speak. I didn’t learn until almost a year after we went underground. There’s a lot of things I never got to tell him.”

Tony looked at the image in his hands, expression wistful but not shattered. This Tony had hope of seeing Father again, after all. “Like what?”

“Thanks, I guess, for one,” Sav said. He closed his fingers again, the memory dying into smoke and ash. “Both of you, really. You didn’t have to take us in.” The words came easier as he gestured the words, his hands and arms a graceful dance of thought and emotion. “For patience. No one ever made me feel stupid for not being able to talk. Father was so… supportive. He said, one time, to some stupid-ass reporter, he said, ‘He’ll talk when he’s got something to say,’ like he always believed I could do it.”

“He did,” Tony affirmed. “Told me the same thing, actually. We had a fight about it, when I suggested a speech therapist or something... Not that I thought you weren’t _capable_ , just that maybe you needed some help to get there. He... didn’t.” Tony smiled, just a little. “And if you think he didn’t have to take you in, well... that’s proof you didn’t get to know him well enough. The instant he first laid eyes on the three of you... that was it, you were _his_.”

Sav nodded, slowly. He stretched again, pulling time up. His memories of Uncle Clint were fading, even though he didn’t want them to. He’d looked at this one so often that it was fuzzy around the edges. “I hope we can save them,” he said. “That’s what I’ve been thinkin’ about. That… I hope it works. I hope we didn’t drag you into this for nothing, that we didn’t hurt you worse.”

“Well, me too,” Tony said, wry. “But I’d for sure rather die myself than hurt your father, even if I know he won’t see it the same way. I’m glad you took the risk, however it works out.”

The daylights were coming up a bit, brightening the habble as natural sunrise outside. “Come on, long day ahead. Getting across the ocean’s not as easy as it used to be.” He cracked open his belt pouch a grabbed a stim, breaking the tube into his mouth. “Need one?”

“God, yes.” Tony accepted the stim and cracked it as if he’d grown up with them, and shuddered through the initial rush.

Sav laughed and clapped his step-father on the back. “I have grave concerns for our bright new future, when you take these back with you… just so you know.”

 


	12. Lines of Communication

> _Marcus Cole: Touch passion when it comes your way, Stephen. It's rare enough as it is. Don't walk away when it calls you by name._

 

_Zoya - 2045_

Some days she noticed the smell more than others. Ventilation and sanitation in the habble were two of the largest concerns, right after food. And on some days, even before food.

Today was one of those days; according to reports, it was raining on the surface, and whenever it rained for more than two days, it seemed the whole habble got a sinus infection; some of the vents that exchanged air with the outside were, by necessity, low to the ground. Rain and downed leaves and mold and dirt would clog the tubes. The air in the habble grew damp and hot. Oppressive.

Zoya stripped out of her work-clothes. She’d been treating clearing crew all morning; a bad slip on the part of one of the maintenance workers had knocked four of them down a pipe; broken legs and scrapes that had a high risk of infection, a concussion, and she was pretty sure that she was never going to get the stink of the tunnels out of her skin.

Didn’t matter, she told herself.

She used up most of her day’s water rations to scrub her hair clean, and then used wipes to clear the rest of her skin. She dressed with some eye to her appearance, but that probably wouldn’t matter, either. Jaime had stopped looking. Maybe it was time to move on; there was a guy who worked in reclamation who’d asked her to walk about with him a few times. She considered it for a moment, letting him touch her hand as they strolled through abandoned parts of the habble, and then shook it away. Not even a possibility. Within moments, her imagination had changed his dark-reddish hair to Jaime’s mop of brown tangles…

“I am a hopeless case,” she said, and then had to fend off the inevitable questions, because her roommate didn’t approve of people who talked to themselves. She made up something, pretended that Gwen hadn’t heard her correctly, and talked a bit about work until Gwen’s eyes glazed over.

By the time she was ready to leave, Gwen had no interest in keeping her talking; medical conversation bored Gwen. Zoya let the door swing shut behind her and made her way across the habble. Jaime would be in the workshop, more than likely. She picked up dinner from one of the carts, high carbs and protein in the vaguely-food-flavored bars. Not her favorite; but Jaime’s issues with food came out whenever he was upset. He probably wasn’t eating right. _Idiot._

She slid her palm against the reader. “I have dinner,” she said, waiting to see if Friday would let her in, “and a new treatment protocol for Stark.”

The door slid open. The workshop was cluttered and Stark was poking at a green and white hologram that hovered right before his eyes. The younger Stark was seated on the workbench, making commentary and making the display spin. Zoya shuddered and looked away; watching them work together made her motion sick.

Jaime was near his own workbench, leg bent up as he worked on the armor that resided inside his bones, doing repair on the greaves. The best way to get him to eat was not to call attention to the food. Zoya unwrapped one of the bars, a disturbing shade of neon pink, and laid it on the bench near his elbow without saying anything about it.

Both Starks watched with not-quite-identical amused smiles until Jaime absently picked up the bar and took a bite out of it without even looking up from his work.

“I have a new therapy program for you,” Zoya said, taking the injector kit out of her bag. “I expect you to have a few hours of adjustment, and then it should give you at least thirteen percent more efficiency from your joints. Good, especially if you’re going to be fighting. Which I would tell you not to, but you’re not going to listen. And there’s a time-release stim in this one, should give you a smooth transition, at least twelve hours of improved alertness.”

She glared at the younger Tony. “When you get older, have some more sense, would you?”

“Oh, well done,” he said, “that’s your mother’s look, there, in all its terrifying glory. But we both know I’m not going to listen to you on that count.” He grinned and shrugged. “It’s a Stark thing; I’m sure you understand.”

Zoya snorted. “At least I have the ability to science up my own antidotes,” she said. “Let me know when you’re getting ready to go, I have some adrenals cooking up for you. We’ll get them set into the suit’s pharmacy suite.”

“You’re a blessing and a wonder,” he said. “Jaime doesn’t deserve you.”

Jaime glanced up at his name, looking around with a half-dazed, sleepy blink, and then seemed to process what Tony had said. “Probably not,” he agreed mildly, with a brief look in her direction.

The younger Tony rolled his eyes; the real Tony looked like he was going to throw something at Jaime’s head. “Dumbass,” he muttered fondly.

Zoya blew a puff of air out of her mouth, ruffling her hair. “You two are about as useful as pants on a chicken.”

She unwrapped another nutrient bar, dropped it on the bench, and then sat down near Jaime’s workspace. “Let me see that leg, you look like a contortionist. It’s a wonder you can do any work at all, blocking the light the way you’re all twisted up.” She grabbed his ankle and dragged it over to rest across her lap. She picked up a tool and then checked the diagnostic scans.  

“I’m fine,” Jaime protested, but didn’t try to pull away. “I need to get this done.”

“Yep,” Zoya said, not looking away from the armor. “Which means you’re going to stop being a stubborn idiot and let me fix it. You’ve done wondrous things, Jamie, but you still haven’t figured out how to bend your knee backward. There’s no way you can do this work without growing an extra arm. Put your finger there and hold that in place, would you?”

He sighed, put-upon, and did as she said. “It won’t matter if it’s fixed, you know, in another few days.”

Zoya rolled her eyes. This again. “You know something, hotshot? Life is made up of moments. You should try living in the one you’re _in_.”

He rumbled, deep in his throat. “I’m trying to make all our moments _better_ , Zin.”

From across the room, the two Tonys were either giving her space, or they’d fallen into actual science-chatter, ignoring everything outside their particular point of attention. “Apparently not all of them. This one kinda sucks,” she said. “If it doesn’t matter what happens _here_ , why is it so hard for you to make them good moments?”

“We’ve had good moments,” Jaime protested. He caught her hand, pleading. “Come on, we’ve been over this. I know you don’t really remember Before, but... Things were so... so _dark_ , when I was little. And I didn’t even know it until we went to live with Father and Dad and, and now it’s dark again, for the whole world, not just the _assets_. I can’t, Zin, I just... I can’t _not_ try to fix this.”

“And I’m not asking you to,” Zoya said. “You think I don’t want my dad back, too? But this life, this life _right here_ , that’s what we have _now_. In a few days, maybe, this will all be gone and we won’t remember anything, there’s some other versions of us out there. What do you think will happen then? To us. You think there’ll be an us, then? _We don’t know_. So I think, maybe, you ought to think about making the most of it, while we have it.”

Jaime curled his hand around her neck. “There’s not a world out there where I won’t love you.”

Zoya ignored the twist of pain and relief that resulted. Instead, she jabbed him with the tool and reconnected the circuit. “There, see if you can’t get the back of the greave to form up. I can see where you took shrapnel here.” She glanced up. “So, let me come home, would you? You don’t have to drive me away.”

He looked down at his ankle and watched the pieces twisting into place. “You’ve never really cared about the plan. I didn’t want you to try to talk me out of it.”

“Even a Stark knows when the wall’s too thick to break through it with her head, Jaime,” she said. “I’ve done the calculations, you know. Even assuming we can get the Domes back under our control; the math is _horrific_. Now that M.O.D.O.K.’s dead, we’re going to lose another forty percent of the population in the next five years. That’s a hell of a sacrifice for me to demand. My personal fears are… trivial, comparatively. It’s not that I don’t understand the plan, it’s not even that I don’t agree it may be the best option. Assuming all goes well, and when has that ever happened?” She reached over and brushed hair off his forehead; he always did that, let his hair get in the way. He used to let her keep it trimmed. “Do the analysis, you know I’m not lying. We’re going ahead with the plan, and I’m not going to talk you out of it.”

His eye went vague and distant as he ran the numbers. “Eighty-four point six percent chance that you will be safer without me,” he sighed. “If it... fails.”

“Take a look at your step-dad, Jaime,” Zoya said, lifting her eyebrows and jerking her chin in Tony’s direction. “You think we’re going to fail? You think that’s even remotely possible, now that we have two Starks. Two Starks and _hope_? I don’t believe that. Not for a second.”

Jaime looked toward the Starks, deep in discussion, and his lips curved. “Starks do tend to tip the odds in their favor,” he allowed.

Zoya allowed herself a faint smirk. “It’s genetic,” she said. “Here. I have something for you.” She dug around in her bag again and pulled out a vial for the injection kits. “It’s a booster, for your pain threshold. I know Extremis clears off damage, but there’s no reason why it has to hurt you so much to put your armor on. There’s enough for your trip to London.” She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Because I _believe_ you won’t need any more than that.”

Jaime took the vial. “Dad’s right. I really don’t deserve you.”

Zoya chuckled. “Don’t make me threaten to be a brat, just so you can feel worthy,” she said. “Come on, you should eat something.” As if he hadn’t already put down enough calories for a normal human, but he probably didn’t remember that, and she might be able to sneak enough food into him for one day to actually satisfy. He’d be better for it, and by extension, so would she.

***

_Tony_

Tony’s first glimpse of the Iron Soldier armor froze the breath in his lungs and made his heart run a jagged scale of beats. Solid black, except for the red star emblazoned on the left shoulder and another one over the chest, it was sleek, but matte. Technologically wondrous and yet terrifying. It was impossible to look at that armor and not understand, intimately, exactly what the older version of himself was fighting for.

The strike team was small, carefully chosen for their resistance to mind control, or other necessary skills.

Jessica had developed an immunity to telepathy over time, something they had utilized to good effect even in Tony’s time. She could also fly (even if she crashed more often than not) and was super strong.

Danny Cage, Tony had been told, was the child of Jessica’s long-departed ex, Luke Cage, and Claire Temple, who had been medic to the Defenders, a secondary superpowered group who also operated out of New York. Danny had inherited all the best facets of her father’s powers, including near-immunity to physical damage. Unfortunately, most of the Defenders had been wiped out in an early raid. When they’d heard about it, Steve and Jessica had made a daring raid into one of Doom’s compounds to rescue the baby girl and had adopted her.

She’d picked up other powers somewhere, too. Danny was, in Sav’s words, just like Superman. She could fly, fight, and was immune to bullets. She just needed freezing breath and X Ray vision and she’d be perfect. And it was obvious that Steve doted on his adopted kids. Tony was greatly tempted to try to get some pictures so he could show them to Buc-- no, not thinking about that right now. Just not.

It might, actually, have been a little disturbing how much he was thinking about the things he wasn’t thinking about.

Moving on, other members of the team; Jaime, who was invulnerable to mind control by virtue of Extremis, and don’t think that Tony had forgotten about that, disturbing as it was. And dear sweet Tesla, Erik fucking Lehnsherr. Which shouldn’t have been surprising, but it was.

“You got old,” Tony said in greeting, which was rude. True, but rude. Erik had changed his signature look a little, but the helmet was still the same. Tony supposed it kept M.O.D.O.K. out as well as it had kept Charles at bay, back in the day. “What happened to change your mind?”

Erik flattened his lips, glaring. “You have not changed in the slightest, Anthony,” he said. He rubbed his thumb against his forearm, tracing, as Tony knew well, the inked numbers that were so old and faded against his skin that they were more memory than flesh. “I found, when the time came, that there was something more important to me than the Mutant Brotherhood: free will. I will not rest until I have wrested it back from those who would take it from us. Charles tried to tell me, before he passed, but I would not listen until it was almost too late to make a difference.” He gave Tony a dubious glance. “It’s appalling, I assure you, that I hold out hope that _you_ will be the one making that difference.”

“I hate sending you off alone,” Steve was saying, his large hands clasping Jessica’s.

“She’s not alone. There’s half a dozen of us,” Tony interrupted. “I promise we’ll take good care of your girls, Steve.”

“One of these days, he’s gonna remember that I can kick his ass,” Jessica said, recovering her hands. “Danny, you got the Bitch with you?”

“Yes, Mother,” Danny said, rolling her eyes. “And don’t call her that, she doesn’t like it.”

Jessica rumbled something that sounded exactly nothing like agreement. “The shield doesn’t like me, I’ll call her whatever I want.”

“Take care of my girls, Tony,” Steve said, clapping Tony very gently on the arm. “All of them.”

“Of course.” He looked around at their group and then flashed Danny a grin. “What, no ‘with my shield or on it’ speech?”

“I so totally did that before,” she said. She buffing her nails on her shirt with pride, and then deflated. “Dad took the shield away for three weeks. It was _awful_.”

“Steven. What are you, some kind of enemy of history?” His older self and Lehnsherr and Jaime were starting to huddle up in a way that meant _time to go_. Tony swallowed another smartass comment, because if he got started they’d be here all day. See, he could be responsible when he had to.

The quinjet hadn’t changed much; clearly there hadn’t been time, or perhaps there was too much time, and not enough raw materials, for a major upgrade to flight technology. Or even that they’d had to scavenge pieces to rebuild, Tony didn’t know. What he did know was that the bright red outfitted hero in the pilot seat was _not_ on the strike team.

Jaime came to a dead stop, blinked, then rolled his tongue around in his mouth like he’d been force-fed something distasteful. “Wade. I didn’t think you’d gotten my message.”

“Well, what can I say,” Wade said. Tony wasn’t sure how a solid red mask conveyed a smirk, but it was really obvious. “You offered a fuckton of money, and what’s more, you offered it to past me, so don’t you worry, Lord Stark, I’ll come to collect after you get home.” He held up a wrist, bearing a gold bracelet, which held an incredibly gaudy pink gem. “What? Teleportation? It’s always been a part of the Deadpool schtick. No retcon here, not at all.”

“And before you ask,” Jaime said, holding up one finger, “no one is going to have sex with you.”

Tony almost asked whether that was something Deadpool had done before, and then caught himself. Of _course_ it was something Deadpool had done before.

Deadpool looked between the two Tonys with apparent delight. “There are _two_ of you!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands like a kid. “Oh man, the readers are going to be _so mad_ when one of you bites it! But just _think_ of the reunion sex! I totally call dibs on being able to film that.”

And _that_ answered the question of whether Deadpool had gotten any less batshit crazy over the intervening years.

Jaime pressed his fingers up under his eyeball like he wanted to lobotomize himself through his eye socket. “Can you take us to London, or not?”

“Depends,” Deadpool said, glancing at Tony. “Is he going to hold to his side of the bargain? Past me went through a really dry spell for a while, and he could use the cash. Because if you try to screw him -- me? Time travel grammar is the _worst_ \-- us? Whatever. The point is, I want my money. Our money. _The_ money.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Assuming I get back to my time alive and more or less mentally intact, I’m good for it. I’ve been accused of a lot of things, but cheating my debts isn’t on the list.”

“Well, all right, then,” Deadpool said. He clapped his hands together. “Let’s get this road on the show.” He twisted the horrible pink gem on his bracelet. “Please keep arms, legs, and heads inside the teleportal at all times. Remember to not teleport for at least thirty minutes after eating a meal, and does anyone please want to have sex before we go? Not even, necessarily, with me, I can just watch? No? You are not fun, at all. Especially you, Starks. Which Stark am I even talking to? It’s soooo confusing. Ah, there we go, all charged up. Go go go.” And he reached out and shoved Jaime right through -- nothing at all. But Jaime disappeared with a soft popping sound as soon as Deadpool’s hands left his shoulders.

“Who’s next, don’t be shy, step right up and take a ride right through my loooove portal,” Deadpool said. How was it that his mask, which was just as expressionless as it could possibly be, could leer? That shouldn’t be possible.

Danny went next; she’d apparently done that a few times because she held out one finger to Deadpool and touched him very lightly in the center of his palm. “No need to grope, Wade,” she said as she vanished into nothingness.

“That is a load of horseshit,” Wade commented as he sent Erik on his way with a quick pat on the shoulder. “There is always a need to grope somebody. It’s affectionate.”

“I think you might have the definition of ‘grope’ wrong,” Tony observed. “Or perhaps ‘affectionate.’” He held out his hand. “Come on, let’s get it over with.”

Tony barely registered the change between Wade’s palm against his (and yeah, okay, so Wade smacked his ass, too) on the way through the teleport; which had skipped all the usual displays of being a portal and was more like a magic trick. One second he was on the Quinjet with Wade’s hand plastered over his left buttcheek, and the very next second he was in what looked like an abandoned London tube tunnel. Nice change of pace from the usual, unpleasant, transfer portals that always made him feel like a dishrag that had been spun the wrong way.

Which did not keep Jessica from tumbling onto the pavement and heaving up her breakfast as soon as she landed. “I hate that man,” she muttered, wiping the back of her hand along her mouth. “Absolutely, I hate him.”

“I thought it was actually unusually smooth, for a teleport,” Tony put in, looking around. “So, what’s next?”

“We wait for Dad to come through, and then we talk him through a panic attack, I expect,” Jaime said, biting down on his lip. “Portals, and Wade touching him? It’s gonna be bad.”

Tony had to admit, he’d kind of forgotten about the touching thing. He chewed on his lip and considered it. Sometimes, Wade could be startlingly observant and kind and gentle. But mostly, he was an asshat. “Okay, sure. I can take that if someone doesn’t have a better idea.” He knew the sorts of things that ran through his head when he was freaking out about portals, anyway.

“Even accounting for Stark’s…” Erik rolled the world around in his mouth for a while, as if he was trying to decide the least offensive term to use, which was weirdly polite of him, “distress, this method of transportation is certainly much faster. And safer. While Mr. Wilson is an unbearable sort of person, I can say with no lack of surety that his heart is exactly in the right place.”

“What, have you ripped it out?” Jessica asked, rinsing her mouth out and spitting. “It’s been done before. Doesn’t help.”

The older Stark stepped into existence. The mask on the Iron Soldier armor popped up and he gasped for air as if he’d been suffocated.

A moment later, Wade was there as well, the palm of his hand rather firmly on his dick. God. “What?” he said. “Gotta touch myself to teleport, right?” He started humming an old Divinyls’ song.

Tony ignored Deadpool -- crassness was the least of his faults -- and stepped in close to his older self, filling as much of his view as possible. “One four one five nine two six,” he said.

The other Tony frowned at him, and Tony grinned, all easy charm. “Come on, that’s the softball one.”

After a couple of seconds, his other self managed, “Decimal places of pi.”

“There you go,” Tony said. “Six two six oh seven.”

“Plank’s constant. Sort of. You’re cheating.”

“Duh,” Tony said. “One seven two five three one five five five.”

The other Tony’s eyes wrinkled into a frown. “That’s not e. I don’t...” He frowned harder. Damn, Tony needed to look up some wrinkle cream when he got home. “I don’t know.” He glared at Tony. “You’re cheating again, somehow.”

Tony grinned. “Tack a six on the beginning and it’s Rhodey’s phone number when we were at MIT.”

His counterpart’s mouth fell open, and then he coughed out something almost like a laugh. “Okay, you win that one.”

“You good?”

“If you’d shut up for five seconds.”

Tony looked over at the others. “He’s good.”

“No, you’re staying here. We’ll come back for that ride home,” Jaime was saying, pointing his finger at Wade. “You’re not immune and you’re fucking impossible to kill. I do not want to tear down the city, it’ll take too long.”

Deadpool clasped his hands together, just to the left of his cheek, as if Jaime had presented him with a bouquet of flowers. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me, kitten. You sure you don’t --”

“Not fucking you, Wade,” Jaime sighed. “The answer is no. The answer has been no every single time you asked, all the way back to when I was _fourteen_. No, no, an infinite amount of no. You are--”

“Persistant?”

“That’s one word.”

“At least he takes no for an answer?” Jessica suggested, lifting an eyebrow in a ‘it could be worse’ sort of way. “However temporarily?”

“Right,” Jaime said. “All right, let’s go find us some moles.”

“Oh, huzzah.” Tony had almost managed to forget about the _moles_ part of this.

 


	13. The Hour of the Wolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING on this chapter for suicidal ideation and a suicide attempt that is stopped at the last moment. Please keep your own health in mind; if this is not something you can read, skip the first section.

> _G'Kar: It is now seven days since we lost Captain Sheridan and Mr. Garibaldi. In a way I think we have also lost Ivanova. It is as though her heart has been pierced and her spirit has poured out through the wound. She blames herself. It is foolish; it is destructive; it is… human._

 

_Bucky - 2019_

The room on the 42nd floor had become cluttered with Bucky’s junk. He couldn’t bring himself to return to the empty penthouse. Even Tony’s scent, which had once been so strong on their sheets and pillows, was faded to nothingness. And lingering in that white, pristine space, wanting so bad to glance up and see Tony puttering around as he so often did; he seemed both closer and further away when Bucky was in that space, alone.

The Winter Soldier had brought him to the hideaway, and that was where Bucky eventually found himself. The sofa was loaded with blankets and discarded tees. DOB-E kept the area free of food scraps and bowls, or otherwise it would have been filthy, rather than just messy.

Bucky glanced up; the red numbers of the clock flickered. 12:01 a.m.

He pulled out one of his combat blades, balanced it across one finger, let the knife’s edge glitter in the faint light, then cut a slash in the table in front of him, like he did, every single day.

He traced the fingers of his right hand across the carved marks. Fifty-nine marks, clustered together in groups of five.

Bucky slid the knife back into its sheath, the flat blade disappearing into the seams of his clothes. He contemplated the marks, as if the truth might be written there, somehow.

All he could cling to was Strange’s occasional messages, a scrap of paper that would sometimes appear out of nothingness and land on the table. _Still alive._

That was all the hope he had. More than that, he had terrible, terrible fear. Someone had been holding Tony for reasons of their own for two months, and keeping him alive? For _what_? Was he suffering? Being tortured like he was in Afghanistan?

Alive could mean a lot of things, and so very few of them were good.

Bucky couldn’t breathe. There was never enough air. His chest always hurt. Everything hurt. He contemplated his sidearm, laying black and quiet and deadly, on the table, just to the side of the marks.

Could he actually kill himself, or would he just leave a big mess to clean up?

God, Tony would be so angry, if…

Except that Tony wasn’t going to know, because Tony wasn’t here.

Bucky snatched the pistol up. Felt the comforting weight in his hand. He went through a routine weapons check, the motion somehow soothing. Tears prickled inside his eyelids. Even after all this time, he hadn’t wept for the loss, he’d kept himself as numb as he could, but slowly that wall of ice had eroded, leaving him with no shield, nothing that kept the pain out.

He turned the gun in his hand, slow, steady. His heart rate didn’t change, no spike in adrenaline. The barrel was a single, black eye.

The press of metal against his forehead was cold, but warmed rapidly from his body heat. He was breathing. His heart beat. Tears rolled unchecked down his cheeks. His finger dropped to the trigger, tightened, then relaxed again.

Soft tissue, he thought. His skull was pretty damn hard.

He moved the pistol, slow, steady.

The whine of a single repulsor was all the warning he had, then Sasha’s hand was there, between the barrel of the gun and the underside of Bucky’s chin. Sasha, his eyes steady and burning with anger, was sitting on top of DOB-E, hovering midair.

Sasha’s mouth scrunched, twisted. His hand was still pinned between Bucky and the gun. “No, Dad,” he said.

The gun slipped from Bucky’s hand, clattering onto the table. Bucky had never heard Sasha speak before. No one had. The child wasn’t mute -- he cried rather noisily -- but _words_ had never passed his lips. _He’ll talk when he’s got somethin’ to say._

“Oh, _god_.” Bucky’s voice broke and suddenly he was sobbing, pulling his son into his lap.

***

_Rikki_

“Jaime,” Rikki called out from her ignominious position, kneeling on the floor and peering under the bed, “have you seen Pig?”

“I don’t have him,” Jaime reported, not looking up from his tablet.

“Which, I note, doesn’t clarify whether or not you’ve seen him.” Rikki pushed up, dusting her hands off. Pig was Sasha’s favorite toy; favorite to the point that he wouldn’t go to bed without the stupid stuffed animal. If Sasha was a normal child, Rikki would just let him scream it out for a while, but it was Sasha, whose tantrums were literally inflammatory. And he was a super soldier, which meant he could go without sleep longer and scream louder than most pre-schoolers.

“I saw it this morning.”

“Okay, we’ll start there,” Rikki said, gritting her teeth. She wanted to go _home_. Not her home. Ellie’s home. Somewhere that there were teachers and classes and no whiny brothers and watching her father turn into a human train wreck.

“Start where?” Jaime wasn’t listening to her at all. He was just responding to her words like they were mosquitoes, waving them away absently.

Rikki snatched the tablet out of his hand and threw it on the bed.

“Rikki!” Jaime protested.

“Where did you see Pig this morning?” She was using her extra nice voice, with the bland, professional smile.

Jaime blanched. He rubbed at his face. “Um. Common room. Watching Uncle Clint and Uncle Sam playing Mario Karts.”

“Great. Come on.” Rikki didn’t wait for Jaime’s agreement, before she grabbed his wrist and hauled him to his feet. “You’re gonna help me look.”

Jaime huffed, but got his feet under him, looking back at his tablet. “Why?” he whined.

“It’s an hour ‘til Sasha’s bed time,” Rikki pointed out. “If you want to sleep tonight, you’ll help me.”

The common area was filled with the adults. Someone had ordered pizza and everyone was clustered to eat, plates balanced on their legs, on the back of the sofa, or in Clint’s case, on the floor in front of him. Jaime slid out of her grip, angled for the kitchen. When he came back, he had most of one slice stuffed in his mouth and two more in one hand.

“How are you supposed to help me, like that?” Rikki asked. She asked in a teasing tone, because the last thing she wanted to do was discourage Jaime from eating, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking entirely, because like this he was useless. The so-called adults were useless, too. They weren’t actually watching the television; it was on, but all of them were talking over it at once. Rikki considered just lifting the sofa over her head with Jessica, Sam, and Dr. Richards all on it, so she could look under it. But the chance of that ending with pizza in her hair was pretty high, so she settled for just lifting one side, sliding them all down to the far end.

“What the hell!?” Jessica demanded, then made a disgusted noise as Dr. Richards moved his weird elastic body back to the near side by wrapping one arm around the back of the sofa. Several times.

“Sasha’s Pig is missing,” Rikki said, moving on to the other sofa, which was vacated in a hell of a hurry as Bruce and Natasha decided they didn’t need the same lift-and-look treatment.

Steve got up from his own chair and picked it up to look under it. “Not here,” he said. “Wait. Where _is_ Sasha?”

The second sofa crashed to the floor. Nearly every adult who routinely looked after Sasha was in the room. Ellie was back at the school for the day to work on some calming exercises, but Jessica, Steve, Bruce, and Clint were all in the room. Sam sometimes took babysitting duty, but he was there, too.

“Shit.”

“JARVIS --”

The elevator door slid open and Father walked into the room. Sasha was riding on his shoulders, giving him directions. Out loud. In Russian.

“<Left!>”

Rikki staggered back a step and fell into the sofa where Bruce and Natasha had been moments before. Father had showered, and his scruff of a beard had been shaved. He was dressed in something other than his combat armor. While his eyes were red and a little puffy as if he’d been crying not all that long ago, he was also making some sort of effort, because he wasn’t slouching immediately into the kitchen and pretending that he couldn’t see anyone.

“<Stop!>” Sasha’s voice was soft, but clear, as if the words were normal.

Father came to a halt just on the edge of the common room. He looked around the room, actually looked, and his gaze came to rest on Rikki’s face. Father flattened his mouth for just a moment, swallowed hard, then spoke. “I’m sorry, Rishka.”

Rikki wanted to scream, although her emotions were such a tangle she didn’t know what she would have been screaming about. She was on her feet before she quite knew what she was doing, two steps and she went right over the sofa in a quick bound. She almost had her arms around her father before she considered it -- Father had been particularly touch-adverse recently -- and then Jaime hit her from behind, knocking her into Father and grabbing both of them around the waist. Father pulled Rikki in close, tucking his chin onto her shoulder.

A moment longer, and the Captain caught Sasha before he could fall from his perch. Steve had one arm around the boy, drew his best friend in and kissed the top of Father’s hair. Rikki wasn’t sure who was crying, or if all of them were, but it was suddenly a little damp inside the embrace.

“Peg!” Sasha said, demanding.

“Huh?”

The little boy held out both arms to his sister, face screwing up. Oh, Christ, was the damn pig’s name Peg and not Pig? Could have been, she supposed. It’s not like Sasha had ever _said_ it before.

“Um,” Rikki said, wiping her eyes and stepping back. “We were just looking for Peg, honey.”

“PEG!” Even from several inches away, Rikki could feel the body heat that Sasha was putting out, radiating heat like a toaster oven. He wasn’t quite smoldering yet, but --

Steve tapped the bracelets, which earned him a flaming orange glare. There went the smoke alarm.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Rikki said. She took two steps backward and then --

“Miss Barnes, do not move.” JARVIS’s voice came through, urgent.

“Holy shit, do you see that --”

“Just like --”

“-- the hell?”

“Is someone recording data on the phenomenon?” Dr. Richard’s voice was decidedly loudest there.

Father grabbed Rikki’s arm and pulled her forward. She turned to look: an inch behind her head was a swirling vortex of colors and light, spinning like a drain in reverse. A tug, there, like faint gravity.

“Peg!” Sasha crowed with delight as the stuffed animal bounced through the portal and landed neatly in his arms. The smoke immediately ceased. The portal lingered for just a few seconds longer, then vanished with a shockwave, knocking pictures off the wall and making everyone in the area stagger backward. Steve managed to brace himself and avoided falling, but Father and Jaime and Rikki ended up in a tangled pile on the floor.

“What the utter and complete fuck?”

Sasha squirmed to get down, and Steve let him without thinking. The boy ran into the bathroom just off the common area and emerged a few minutes later with a Peg under each arm. He showed them to everyone, then grinned. The boy’s skin glowed, nuclear orange and Rikki flipped herself to her feet.

“Sasha!”

The boy held up one hand, letting one of the Pegs fall to the floor. “ _Wait.”_ the gesture said.

Rikki dragged herself to a halt as Sasha glowed brighter. He closed his eyes, tipping his head back and then burst into flames.

“Are you sure he’s not Johnny’s kid?” Dr. Richards demanded of no one.

The flames died, mostly. Sasha stood there, strange and fey, with brilliant orange wings behind him. “ _Watch!_ ” This time, the boy matched the spoken word with his usual ASL. He spread his fingers and crackling black energy rushed between them. The portal formed there, low and dark and sparkling, glitter in a rainstorm. He took the Peg from under his arm and slowly pushed it into the portal. It vanished, and then the portal snapped shut again.

Shocked silence dominated the room.

“Sasha?” Father’s voice broke over the syllables.

Words failed the boy and he shimmered a moment before returning to his more familiar form. He held out his arms for a hug and Rikki snatched him up, holding him close even though he was still incredibly warm.

_I’m sorry,_ he signed.

“Did…” she swallowed hard, Jesus, this was… “Did you take Tony?”

Sasha lowered his eyes, then shook his head. _Not yet._

***

_Bruce_

Bruce had rarely seen Reed so excited. He lasted for about ten minutes of pulling up consoles and relaying requests before finally just telling JARVIS to give Reed administrative control for the duration, because if Reed kept reaching over Bruce’s shoulder to add commands to Bruce’s analytical matrix, then they were going to have a Hulk on their hands, and that wouldn’t help anyone.

“It’s lucky I was here,” Reed said, eyes locked on a holo-screen simulation of the portal’s 5th-dimensional geometry. “I don’t usually waste time on passive social entertainment, but really, I don’t think anyone else in the building would have been able to discern--”

Bruce pushed aside the surge of anger at the implied slight to his own intelligence; it was only Reed’s typical thoughtless arrogance, not worth the effort of getting mad, really.

And Reed _was_ the expert on interdimensional travel, though even he would have to admit that a _time_ portal was different.

The wireframe geometry on the screen was quite compellingly beautiful, actually, though Bruce still hadn’t figured out how it was able to exist without collapsing in on itself as soon as it formed -- the amount of energy needed to stabilize the structure should have been planetary in scale, if Bruce’s understanding of Reed’s hypothetical equations was right.

He snuck a glance at Sasha, curled against Rikki’s chest and sleeping soundly, his stuffed toy clutched tightly under one arm.

“--order of magnitude,” Reed was saying, “but otherwise a striking similarity of shape. And the post-event data are likewise displaying a patterned fluctuation that harmonizes with the radial readings from the base event.” He beamed at Steve and Bucky excitedly.

As one, they blinked and turned their heads to look at Bruce.

Bruce smothered a laugh. “Translation,” he offered, “it’s similar enough to the portal that Tony was taken through that we’re vanishingly certain it’s the same type, though that one was much bigger.”

“That’s what I just said,” Reed put in, sounding vaguely put out.

Bucky was pale but showing more life than Bruce had seen from him anytime in the last two months. “Does that, can we... can we get him back?”

Reed shook his head. “If I’m at all right about the structure of the portal, then the theta amplitude and rho vector define the origin point, relative to the destination. But there isn’t enough residual radiation to accurately estimate either, let alone both, in the post-event artifacts.” He managed to look regretful, though Bruce wasn’t sure if it was in sympathy for Bucky’s worry or just because of the tragedy of an incomplete data set.

Before they could ask, Bruce translated, “We still can’t figure out exactly _when_ he is, because we weren’t collecting the necessary data at the time the original portal opened.” Bucky’s lips thinned and he drew a hard breath, and Bruce hurried on, “At least we can be fairly certain that it was Sasha who took him. Which makes the similarity of the abductor’s armor to Tony’s own much less sinister. It seems entirely possible that it was someone Tony trusts, maybe even Tony himself. So wherever -- _when_ ever they took him, he’s probably safe and among friends.”

Reed craned his neck around in a big loop to eye Bruce. “It does beg the question of why they haven’t brought him _back_ , though.”

Tiredly, Bruce acknowledged a fresh wave of anger at Reed for undoing the reassurance he’d been trying to offer Bucky. _What the hell does Sue see in him, anyway?_ “I’m sure there’ll be an excellent explanation,” Bruce told Reed pointedly.

“It was me,” Jaime said, suddenly, his eyes narrowing in on the data, glancing from one recording to the other. He pulled the holoscreen down to his level, tapping up the camera shots from the Iron Man armor, other street cams, focusing on the Iron Imitator. “This.” He accessed JARVIS’s feed from security monitors, tracking physical training sessions, mapping the overlays. The figure, running, then leaping into the air, tracked with Jaime’s own performances in the gym.

“Analysis, eighty-two point five three repeating percent likelihood that the pilot of this armor… was me. Will be me.”

Bruce had no idea how Jaime had gotten there -- there were gross differences in style between the fighters on the team, but he’d have been hard pressed to tell, say, Tony and Clint apart, if they were both encased in armor. That didn’t mean he didn’t believe Jaime’s analysis, though. “So you and your brother are, at some point, going to kidnap Tony from the past?” He could only think of a handful of reasons why that might be necessary, and he didn’t like any of them.

Jaime twitched. “Maybe we needed him,” Jaime suggested, then glanced at his father, guilty. “Or we’re trying to prevent something.”

Steve snorted. “That about sums up the possibilities,” he said. “Maybe you can try to remember very hard that we’d like him back soon. And a note or something would’ve been nice.”

Bucky flinched. “The dream…” He clenched both hands into fists, the servos in his arm whirring as they overclocked. “Can the… can the past be changed, from the future?”

Bruce spread his hands. “Time travel is rife with paradox,” he said. “If any of us knew for certain...”

“You can’t change the past,” Rikki said firmly. “But the future is always in flux. That’s what Elz says.” One hand curled protectively around Sasha’s head, she looked up at them all. “Maybe the path we’re on is wrong, and they need to show him. Or, or need him not to _be here_ for... something.”

“Jaime’s dream,” Bucky repeated. “The day Tony disappeared. Jaime dreamed that Tony killed me. Remember? Ellie had nightmares, too.” Bucky was breathing hard, nearly bent in half with the force of his heaving lungs. “You called Tony. Remember?”

Rikki nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, Elz was seriously freaked out, I remember that.”

“Some note,” Bruce said wryly. “So they grabbed him to save you?” he asked Bucky. “I could see that... If we can remember what the actual threat was and eliminate it, they could bring him back, don’t you think?”

Jaime touched the back of his head, clutching at his data ports. “I tried to… I was bleeding. There were scrapes in my ports. What the hell did I do to myself?”

Steve frowned. “Language.”

 


	14. In the Kingdom of the Blind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING WARNING WARNING
> 
> This chapter is VERY TRAUMATIC. Please read the end notes for spoilers if you are easily upset and keep your own mental health in mind, PLEASE.
> 
> Keep in mind that this is US, and WE are telling you that this is traumatic. WE are telling you that this chapter STILL KILLS BOTH OF US when we read over it, MONTHS after we've written it.
> 
> The fic has a happy ending, but this chapter does not.

 

> _Michael Garibaldi: Never, ever, ever trust a telepath. I swear to you, I'm gonna have that tattooed inside my eyelids._

 

_Jaime - 2045_

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Jaime muttered. Maus’s territory, the remains of the London underground and an expansive set of custom tunnels was creepy as hell. Moss grew thick on the floor, and when Jaime kicked over a hummock, he saw the bones, broken and gnawed on. Friday’s analysis showed that it had been a dog. Jaime’d never seen the giant moles, but he’d heard stories.

He stepped closer to the group.

In the years between his arrest at the hands of the Avengers and now, Maus had gained a small following of humans who preferred Maus’ rule to the Triumvirate’s. A group of them had met the strike team at the end of the Picadilly line to lead them further into the city through the abandoned Underground tunnels. “How, I wonder,” he said, soft even on his onboard comm, “are they staying free of the M.O.D.O.P.’s control? They’re under the city, technically still in the blast radius, so to speak.”

“You do come up with the worst times to ask the best questions,” Danny shot back. She rolled her neck and shoulders, loosening up in a way that was reminiscent of Uncle Steve going into mission-mode.

“We already knew we couldn’t trust him,” Iron Soldier said, his voice a low rumble over the comms. “Just, you know, fly casual.”

“Good to know I haven’t totally lost my sense of humor,” Dad snarked.

Jesus. Maus actually had a fucking throne room. _How…_ Jaime sighed. This was not going to go well. He glanced at a silver-purple orb right near Maus’s divan. “Friday? What is that?”

Friday ran a quick set of calculations and analysis. “Dunno, boss, but it appears to be the same material from which Magneto’s helm is formed.”

“Good to know,” Jaime said. “Keep an eye on it, the whole time we’re here. If this goes south, let’s see if we can snag it.”

He took a few steps to one side, listening with half an ear while Iron Soldier went through his diplomacy shit, which really was kinda shit. Jaime knew what had happened with the moles the last time, from stories, and Maus and Stark really didn’t like each other. Why were they letting Stark do the talking? Jaime looked around at the rest of the group. It was saying something that Stark actually was the best diplomat on the team.

“.. particle generator, as agreed,” Iron Soldier was saying, holding out the shrunken generator. “In time, based on Van Dyne’s notes, your moles will produce their own biological Pym particles, allowing them to shrink and grow whenever they want to. It’s a bargain, all things considered, and took us a lot of effort to retrieve it.”

Maus was younger than Jaime had expected -- he must have been practically a kid the first time Dad and the Avengers tackled him.

“You don’t have that… squirrel woman with you?” Maus asked, scanning the group of resistance fighters that they’d brought with them.

“Doreen?” the Iron Soldier asked, puzzled. “No, she’s been… um, off planet for several years now. Last I heard.”

Jaime couldn’t tell if Maus looked more relieved or disappointed by that news. Not an uncommon feeling; Doreen got that sort of response from a lot of people. And, all things considered, Maus’s affinity to his tentacled rodents could be seen as similar to Doreen’s kinship with squirrels. Jaime wouldn’t be surprised if Maus had a bit of a crush. Or he was terrified. With Doreen, it was sometimes hard to tell the difference.

“It’s a risk,” Maus pointed out. “Especially for my pets.”

“Your pest-- pets don’t have to get involved,” Iron Soldier responded. “They just need to get us under the Parliament and we’ll take care of the rest. Play it right and no one will ever know you were involved, just in case shit hits the fan.”

Maus smiled at that, and Jaime shivered inside the armor. Maus was a strange person and Jaime didn’t trust him. Not at all. Especially not when he smirked like that. But what the hell else were they supposed to do? They couldn’t get any closer to the M.O.D.O.P. unit without Maus’ tunnelers.

Maus eyed the Pym Particle Generator with undisguised covetousness. “Leave it here, and I will help you,” he said, gesturing to a table to one side of his throne (seriously, bad guys needed to just give it up with the big impressive chairs, it was stupid.)

The Iron Soldier held up a single disc, the center dot glowing pale blue that would enlarge it. “You’ll need this to make use of it,” he said. “When we’re through, I’ll give it to you. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” Maus didn’t look too keen about that, but obviously couldn’t muster a good argument.

“I… still don’t have a good feeling about this,” Jaime muttered.

Lehnsherr put a hand on his shoulder, heavy and solid -- he might have been pushing down on the suit with his magnetic powers -- and leaned in close. “The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend, young man,” he said. “We will keep an eye on him.”

Jaime rolled his single eye. _Not a funny joke, really._

***

_Erik_

War made for strange bedfellows, Erik thought. He was surrounded by the sorts of people that he actively loathed -- those enhanced with machines, with chemicals, with accidents and experiments. Not a single other mutant on the team. How Charles would laugh, if he could see this now: Erik as an old, old man, cooperating with those he had formerly considered the worst of humanity, the ones who aspired and forced their way into being more than they were meant to be.

Erik would endure every bit of that laughter, if only Charles were there to laugh.

_My old friend, how I miss you_ , he thought.

Maus was a mutant, but his talent was so weak as to render that a technicality, and he’d chosen to enhance his creatures rather than himself. He opened his mouth and though his throat worked as if he were singing an opera’s aria, no sound emerged -- at least, none audible to the humans. But a few of the beasts separated themselves from the sleepy pile.

Iron Man -- both of them -- shuddered back away from the creatures as one of them came forward to inspect the team. Erik was finally able to get a good look at the monsters: all waving nose-feelers, tiny eyes, and brown, soft fur.

“Oh, these things do not make me happy,” said the Stark from Erik’s middle age. He stepped backward again, almost tripping over his armor in his haste. Erik shifted a finger, nudging the iron idiot out of the way, and ignored him loftily when Stark’s gaze bored into Erik’s back.

“Let us get moving, shall we?” Erik suggested. “The longer we linger here, the greater the possibility of something going wrong becomes.”

“You know us too well.” The Captain’s daughter shoved at him, playfully, meaning to be light and easy about it, but the girl hardly knew her own strength, nearly knocking Erik over. Or maybe she did, and just remembered some of the old stories. Erik gritted his teeth and did not flick her stupid shield into the ceiling. It was, sometimes, difficult to remember who was the enemy.

He was an old, old man, fighting a young man’s war.

The moles were quick at their jobs, moving with easy surety, carving neat holes out of the earth and stone, packing it down as they moved in a line. Efficient things. Erik found himself hating them, the way he’d hated German efficiency for most of his life. There was little he could do; however. The moles were supposed to be allies and his powers would affect them not at all. Under certain circumstances, and usually with a bit of pre-planning, he’d been able to affect the iron levels in certain creatures’ blood streams, but these creatures were enormous, the iron content in their blood minimal. And their creator had obviously known Erik was coming with them.

Maus wore a fabricated plastic jumpsuit with a polymer helmet and carried no weapons aside from the glass vials that encased his growth and shrinking compounds.

That made Erik nervous. He was too old, too old for this. He was seeing ghosts where they didn’t exist. Maus was getting something he needed, desperately needed, out of the bargain. And with no M.O.D.O.P. guarding London, it might be some months, or even years, before Maus would need to be looking over _his_ shoulder for betrayal.

Finally, the moles tunneled upward at the direction of their master and broke through into a basement area of some sort.

“Where the London hero, Guy Fawkes, supposedly set his charges, and thus became the first man to enter Parliament with honest intentions,” Maus announced. He turned on Stark and held out his hand. “I have kept to our agreement, Stark.”

Even through his helmet, Erik could have sworn he heard Stark’s teeth grinding together, and then he dropped the Pym particle disk into Maus’s hand. “Go then,” Stark said and Maus and his creatures disappeared back into the earth that spawned them, and good riddance.

It was a relief to pass into the building, to feel the cage of iron girders around him, support beams and screws and nails, all those lovely metal pieces that had been so lacking in Maus’s kingdom. Confidence returned, and Erik cracked his knuckles. “Let’s go get us a telepath monstrosity, shall we?”

Erik fell into formation behind Stark’s shoulder, planning what he would say to the younger man, to take back with him into the past. There were so few times in a man’s life when he was granted the opportunity to undo his mistakes, but Stark would be able to change so many things. Too bad Erik himself would never be able to appropriately appreciate the opportunity.

***

_Jessica_

Thirty years, she’d been fighting the same damn villains. The M.O.D.O.P. was only a little smaller than his predecessor; and the chair it used to carry the oversized brain around was in the same style, even if it did utilize Tony’s repulsor tech.

Both Starks staggered a step as the creature whirled on them, huge teeth gnashing in anger as it saw them, then Iron Soldier shook it off, his gauntlets coming up to deliver a rapid-fire volley of blasts.

Jessica grinned as Danny snagged the Bitch off her back and threw the shield, singing its subaudible music, into the fray. The M.O.D.O.P. could take a lot of damage before they’d be at any risk of ending the despicable thing’s life, so no one was trying to take it easy just because they needed it alive.

“How’s the scorp working?” Jaime’s voice, over comms.

Tony, the one in the green armor, shuddered, then dropped into a combat position. “Seems to be holding, although… I can hear it. Sort of. More like suggestions, than orders.”

Aaaand there went the alarms. Jessica launched herself up, checking the exits. A few strategically positioned ceiling collapses and she’d managed to keep most of the guards out. She didn’t make it to all the doors in time and Jaime was up to his eyeballs in controlled goons; the worst kind to fight, usually, although Jaime had apparently decided to take to heart the philosophy that none of this would matter -- or even exist -- in a few days.

Jessica winced as he plowed through a group of what looked like kitchen staff. Tony wouldn’t like that; either of them. “Danny!” she yelled, and Luke’s daughter leaped into the air, flying faster and smoother than Jessica ever would, going to reinforce Jaime, and hopefully tone down the boy’s murderous impulses. Danny dropped into the middle of the group, let them pile on her, then burst upward, spinning like a top and smacking them all with the shield. They went down like ninepins.

Flipping over, Jessica used the ceiling to push herself over the crowd of aggressive non-combatants. They weren’t here to bust up the Buckingham Palace guards. She dropped right on top of the M.O.D.O.P., sticking her landing right in the middle of its oversized skull. Yuck. Why did it have to have hair? That was just nasty. The thing had probably never had a shower, and the hair was oily, knotted, and speckled with oversized dandruff. Jessica barely managed to avoid vomiting.

She pulled the injector kit from her bag. _Please, God, let it work._

Which was right when Maus’s giant mole came up underneath them, knocking the M.O.D.O.P. over and throwing her clear. The kit bounced off the carpet and rolled under a table.

“Great ruler,” Maus said. He was right behind the lead mole and dozens of them poured into the ballroom, tentacled faces grabbing at resistance fighters and palace guards with equal fervor, “I have come to aid you in this time of need, for the reward previously discussed.”

“Kill them! Kill them!” The M.O.D.O.P. kicked its little legs, screaming and flailing ineffectually with its fists. “And get me UP!”

One of the giant moles righted M.O.D.O.P.’s chair, and Jessica heard the others cursing and yelling.

“I fucking _knew_ it,” Jaime swore. “Maus, you son of a bitch!”

Erik stopped being restrained, grabbed a huge chunk of support beam out of the ceiling and used it like a scythe, cutting down huge swaths of guards. “There remains no time now, to be gentle,” Erik said. “We must fight, or die.”

Great, thanks. Just what she hadn’t noticed already. Jessica rolled over, scrambled to her feet, and went after the injector kit.

***

_The Iron Soldier_

His younger self was cursing the moles, attacking them with extreme prejudice. Tony’s recollection of the encounter hadn’t dulled at all -- a perfect memory was a curse as much as a gift -- but the intervening years had given him so many things to choose from that were so very much _worse_ than the groping of a mere animal, that his distaste for the creatures wasn’t quite as keen as it had once been.

No, Tony’s attention was fixed on the M.O.D.O.P. The M.O.D.O.P. wasn’t quite the menace that its creator had been, but looking at it still made him want to vomit, to scream defiance and rage, to sob in despair...

He set his jaw. Stark men were made of iron, and he would do _none_ of those things. None of those things got them any closer to their goals, nor did they get Tony any closer to _his_ goal, and he would not be cowed by a cheap knockoff of his previous--

_master_

\--captor. He _would_ _not_ , even if the sound of the specialized repulsors in the thing’s float-chair made him want to rip his own ears off.

Those repulsors... He’d designed them himself, and M.O.D.O.K. had never been able to improve on them. The M.O.D.O.P.s were cunning but ultimately less clever than their progenitor; none of them would have dared alter them.

Which meant that if Tony could get his hands on them, he could link them together in a feedback loop that would explode in a matter of seconds, taking the whole thing--

No, they needed it alive, damn it. Behind his helmet, Tony’s lip curled in disgust. Fine. Three of them, instead of the whole array. It would generate a sonic burst that ought to send the moles running for their tunnels, and the resulting explosion would take out the entire undercarriage of the chair with only minimal damage to its occupant.

Except, of course, that he couldn’t do it. His left boot was toast after he’d used it to flip under that first volley of missiles, and a damn squidfaced mole had ripped off his left gauntlet and _eaten_ it before he’d managed to pull free from the thing’s grip. He could fly a little, but only for short distances, and hovering was entirely out of the question. Not to mention that he didn’t have an actual toolkit at hand, so the only way to keep the wires where he needed them would be--

Tony’s heart thumped hard, in a way it hadn’t done for years. Hope or fear; the two had long since become one for him. _If this succeeds_ , he reminded himself, _it won’t even matter. And if we fail..._ Well, if they failed, it wouldn’t matter for an entirely different reason.

Tony launched into the air, spiraling to keep his balance. “Friday, get me to Lehnsherr,” he commanded. He couldn’t navigate on his own, not with the view spinning like it was -- he really _would_ vomit if he tried to focus on a single spot out there. He felt a gentle thrust from the right gauntlet, correcting his course, and then Friday was righting the armor for the landing.

Lehnsherr barely even glanced at him, busy trying to push the M.O.D.O.P.’s chair between Jessica and one of the moles. It was resisting; not much of the chair was actually metal, and its control core was carbon fiber, entirely invulnerable to Lehnsherr’s particular manipulation. But Jaime’s strafing runs were interrupting the M.O.D.O.P.’s concentration.

“Erik,” Tony said. “New plan of attack.”

Lehnsherr threw him a dry glare. “I can’t affect the moles or Maus,” he snapped. “What makes you think--”

“Me,” Tony interrupted. He popped the faceplate so he could look Erik in the eye. “I need you to control my suit for me.” He outlined the plan in a few words, between shooting an overexcited mole to distract it from Danny.

“Boss,” Friday protested. “No, you can’t.”

“Override,” Tony snapped at her, then raised an eyebrow impatiently.

Lehnsherr wasn’t as sentimental as Friday. He nodded briskly. “Quickly, then, before the children figure it out,” he said.

Tony nodded and stripped off his remaining gauntlet; he’d need both hands free for this. “Go.”

He’d been thrown around by Lehnsherr’s power before, when they’d been on opposite sides of a conflict, so he knew well how strong it was. He had never before appreciated the deft skill Lehnsherr could exercise with it, though. He shot through the air and pulled roughly up under the floating chair, and no matter how the chair moved, Tony stayed locked in position, as if -- well, as if he were a magnet clinging to it.

The repulsor array had multiple failsafes, so that repairs and upgrades wouldn’t affect the M.O.D.O.P.’s operation. Tony doubted it even noticed the drop in power when he pulled three of the repulsors offline and began rapidly re-working their wiring.

The feedback whine was already unpleasant to Tony’s ears when he reached for the third wire. It wasn’t long enough to twist into the bundle; he’d have to hold it in position for the four seconds it would take to overload the reactors.

He pressed it into place with his left hand, and put his right hand over the star on his shoulder. “Be with you soon, sweetheart,” he whispered.

Distantly, over the piercing whine of the overloaded repulsors, he heard a scream. “Dad, _no_!”

And then--

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRAUMATIC SPOILER:
> 
> During the fight with the MODOP, when things are going poorly, old!Tony sacrifices himself to put the MODOP out of commission. It is a very emotional scene, which will bleed over into the next chapter, next week.


	15. The Rock Cried Out No Hiding Place

> _Rev. Dexter: I'd rather do something and make a mistake than be frightened into doing nothing. That's the problem back home. Folks have been conned into thinking they can't change the world. Have to accept what is. I'll tell you something, my friends, the world is changing every day. The only question is, who's doing it?_

 

_Tony - 2045_

He was dead. He’d been dead before, actually, but he’d never personally _witnessed_ it.

Jessica walked up to the M.O.D.O.P., still kicking and screaming, and stabbed it in the forehead with the injector kit. “Oh, Christ, _Tony…_ ” She turned away from Tony’s body and startled when she saw Tony standing there. “Oh. _Christ_ , Tony.”

Tony felt numb as he watched Jaime attempt resuscitation. They all knew it would fail. Tony looked at the bottom of the chair, the ruined reactors, working it out in his head -- they weren’t _that_ different from the ones he already used. Slowly, he turned to look at Erik Lehnsherr.

Lehnsherr’s aged, lined face was solemn, but he met Tony’s eyes without flinching. After a moment, Tony nodded, and turned away again. He put his hand on Jessica’s shoulder. “We should go, quickly, before Maus manages to regroup,” he said.

“Steve’s going to be furious with me,” she said, looking back at the older Tony. She wiped at her eyes. “This is so… I was supposed to bring you all home again.”

Danny dragged herself out of one of the collapsed tunnels, brushing dirt out of her hair. “He got away,” she reported. She slung the shield back onto her harness. “Jaime, come on, cousin, we gotta get out of here.”

Jaime was sobbing, great tearing sounds. He didn’t seem to hear her. Danny took a deep breath and then just picked him up, armor and all. “Come on. Mom, get the M.O.D.O.P.”

Jessica rolled red-rimmed eyes. “She takes after Steve, yeah?” she said to Tony.

Tony found a ghost of a smile, then bent to pick himself up. Even in the armor, he didn’t weigh much, and that seemed wrong. Disrespectful, somehow. “Easiest way back to the station?”

The moles had pulled their old tricks, so the easy way was collapsed. That left them with going aboveground, through the crowds. Without the M.O.D.O.P.’s control, London dome was already a mob of panic and riots and crazed, terrified people. Fortunately, they didn’t have to go far before they had enough clear airspace to get above the crowds.

Wade was waiting for them on top of a water tower, kicking his heels and drawing a rather obscene cartoon of Spiderman. “Did we win?”

“More or less,” Tony said. “A little closer to less than we’d like. Make with the door.”

Wade looked over the group. “Oh, called it. So sorry.” He pressed his palm to Jessica’s forehead and she stumbled away, still carrying the M.O.D.O.P.

“Stark,” Lehnsherr said, low, while Wade was teleporting Danny and Jaime. “A favor, if this plan should work.”

Tony looked down at the body in his arms, this strange vision of himself, old and tired and more peaceful than since Tony had first arrived, and then looked back up at Lehnsherr. “Seems I owe you one,” he said. “What is it?”

“I would ask you to speak to the younger me, but I think we both know that I won’t listen,” Lehnsherr said. “Tell Charles, instead. Tell him not to give up on me. That in the end, I knew what was important. Could you tell him that, for me?”

“I’d have told him that anyway,” Tony said. “And I’m pretty sure he already knows. Or he’d have done something about it already, back in my time.”

“It would be nice,” Lehnsherr said, “to come to my senses before I am too old to enjoy the remainder of my life.”

Wade patted the dead man’s cheek once, then extended his hand to Tony, quipless for once.

***

_Zoya_

Never had Zoya been more in favor of the plan than when a sobbing, nearly incoherent Jaime had stumbled into the medical clinic to tell her that her father was dead.

You learned, after some time being a doctor, that some people just couldn’t be saved. You did what you could to ease pain, and then you let them go. Jaime, who had been swearing that nothing would matter in a few days anyway, was learning that all over again. “It’s kinder, this way,” she said, soft and low, knowing he wasn’t listening. “He was only holding on for this hope, and he saved everyone.” She didn’t know that for sure, no one had reported, but she knew her biological father. It was exactly what he would do. Tony Stark was never going to die by _accident_.

Zoya rummaged blindly in her kit. “Here,” she said, identifying her injectors and adrenals by touch. “We should finish the testing. You need to function.”

Jaime nodded and she gave him a mild sedative -- well, mild for an Extremis-boosted super soldier. “I assume the scorpion works?”

“Not entirely,” Jaime reported. “He can hear the M.O.D.O.P., but he wasn’t compelled. We need to strengthen the resonance inhibitor to make sure that the full blast of M.O.D.O.K.’s control can’t grab him. I think they’re taking our prisoner out to the wasteland to test the adjustments.”

Zoya nodded, slowly. Jaime must be more shaken than even she’d thought, that he wasn’t insisting on supervising and fussing over every step of the plan, instead trusting someone else to get that critical data during the testing. And God, she hoped that Tony’s younger counterpart could finish the project, since they no longer had the genius who’d invented the implant in the first place, even if they were technically the same person.

Finally, Jaime was calm enough that she ventured a gentle, “What happened?”

“Maus betrayed us,” Jaime mumbled, scrubbing at his face with one hand. “If I ever see him again, I’m going to rip his spine right out.”

 _Ew._ Zoya could visualize that unusually well; as a doctor, she was appalled at the imagery. As a daughter who’d lost one mother and _two_ fathers, well, she had a very different opinion. “I’ll help you track him down,” she promised, hoping to God they’d never get the opportunity.

She had no time for her own grief. First Jaime needed her, and then the Fridays freaked out en masse, which took some brain power to deal with. And just after she’d finished with that, the strike team returned with the data, which meant the younger version of Tony was back in the shop.

She still couldn’t quite wrap her mind around the fact that he was _real_. He was so different from the Tony she knew -- but so _like_ him, as well. Watching him work with all seriousness on the device that was going to kill him if he fell victim to M.O.D.O.K.’s manipulations again was strangely heretical. She hated the idea. She was a doctor, damn it, not a murderer, and she did not want to install the device around his spinal cord, knowing that he would be dead in less than a tenth of a second (this version of Tony was frighteningly efficient and almost as ruthless as his counterpart) if it failed.

“I want you to know,” Zoya said, looking at the tiny device inside the sterilized specimen jar, “that I’m doing this under protest. And my price for doing it is that you never, ever make me do something like this again. Ever. In any timeline.” She shuddered all over, wondering if her mother would be proud of her daughter’s dedication to preserving life, or ashamed of her for risking this one life. She glanced at her biological father and decided not to ask. The answer would only make her feel worse.

Of course, given the chance to grow up with Natasha Romanov for her mother might produce a Zoya who was an entirely different person. She liked to think that her dad’s influence would still hold sway, but she tried not to dwell on the question. There was no sense contemplating it, really. She’d never know the answer.

Zoya’s surgical team set up the operating theater under her direction: a hair-trigger device implanted inside three vertebrae and around the spinal cord was going to require a little more prep than a simple appendectomy. To begin with, Tony’s blood was going to need to be oxygenated directly, since he couldn’t breathe during the procedure. Even the slight movement of his beating heart could kill him -- they would stop his heart for the few, most critical seconds of the surgery.

She looked down at her hands.

If the surgery failed, she was going to lose the last of her parents. And if it succeeded... God, she was going to lose _everything_ if this worked. Everything she’d ever known was going to change and she wouldn’t even remember to mourn it.

Her hands were steady.

“Are you ready?”

“Sure,” Tony said, far too easily. He held out his arm for her sedative injection. “Once more into the breach.”

She injected the sedative and helped him lay back on the padded and sterile table. They’d reposition him and install a more comprehensive IV once he was unconscious.

His muscles were already beginning to go slack, his eyes half-lidded. “Zinny,” he mumbled, a nonsense nickname she only half-recalled from the dimmest, earliest years of childhood, “lookin’ f’ward to havin’ you as a daughter-in-law.”

***

_Jaime_

Only two days after surgery, and Tony was adamantly insisting on going home. Zoya was being kinda pissy about inadequate recovery time, but Tony stood his ground. Dangerous as the surgery had been, it hadn’t done much damage to his body -- two incisions, small enough to not even need staples to close. He was determined to get home before he’d been in this dark future for an entire week.

Breakfast was a hell of tears and weird requests. To be safe, Tony was refusing to take anything physical back with him, but everyone knew that he had an ironclad memory and was loading him up with messages for their younger selves. Even Rikki was getting in on it, telling Tony in a hushed, but fervent voice; “I want you to tell me --”

“Not to let Ellie get away?” Tony suggested, a smirk teasing up the corner of his mouth. “Don’t worry, I think you know that even in my time.”

“No, idiot,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Tell me to stop being stupid about _you_. I fought it for a long time, and it didn’t help anyone. And if I don’t believe you? Tell me that I told you to remember Charlotte. I’ll know what you mean.”

Finally, it was time.

“God, you look like an antique,” Jaime snarked, watching his dad clunk around in the old Iron Man armor.

“You’re going to hurt my feelings,” Tony said, brushing one gauntlet down his chest. “Besides, I want JARVIS back as soon as possible.”

“Well, just remember to find someplace to hide where you can see the battle; I need to be gone before you make a reveal. God help us if I grab the wrong one of you.”

There was paradox there that didn’t settle well in Jaime’s mind, but Sav always brushed off the paradox problem when he brought it up.

“The universe and all its realities are much too vast for me to punch that big a hole in it,” Sav would say, with a tiny smile. “The very idea that what affects one tiny planet in one timeline in a far flung corner of a vast galaxy, among billions, will do anything to the multiverse as a whole? That’s putting far too much power in my hands.”

“You do look like an angel,” Jaime would always point out.

Tony’s family had come to see him off: Uncle Steve and Aunt Jessica, Danny -- who kissed Tony’s cheek and said that she looked forward to meeting him again -- and Rikki, Ellie, and Zoya. Three of the Friday androids came up, and Eight whispered something to Tony that made him blush furiously. And Jaime, of course. He couldn’t have missed this for anything. His whole life, he’d been searching for some way to right the wrongs, to fix everything.

He _had_ to be there, for this last little bit of it, even if watching his dad walk out of his life for the last time was a dark ache. Zoya laced her fingers with his, her palm a gentle squeeze.

“You ready?” Sav turned to their dad, his angelic form proud and, as always, just a little terrifying. It had always been a wonder to Jaime that his brother could hold so much power and use it for so little.

“God, am I _ever_ ,” Tony said.

Sav nodded, then twisted his hands, grabbing the earliest of his memories and pulling it, stretching time like taffy and spinning it between his fingers. Jaime could see the images forming, the Tower proud and tall, glowing against the darkness of late evening. What could Sav possibly remember from that night? He had been just a child, a four-year-old kid who’d communicated entirely through sign language, stubbornly remaining mute. Jaime remembered that his fathers had fought about it, when Tony wanted Sasha to see a speech therapist.

Jaime’s eye widened. The argument. Father had said something about Sasha being the only Barnes kid that didn’t need to be _saved_. That was when Sasha had changed the sign he used to indicate himself. _That_ was the memory Sasha was pulling on.

Sav turned his head and grinned at his brother as if he’d heard Jaime’s thoughts. Maybe he had; Sav was vague about the full extent of his abilities. “Time to go,” Sav said. He spun the time strands together and spread his fingers, enlarging the image, stretching the memory into something physical, ripping at the fabric of space and time with both hands, letting the portal grow to a size that a man could walk through. “You might want to be ready for a drop,” Sav cautioned his dad. “I tend to miss the ground a lot; apparently I looked up most of the time.”

“Right,” Tony said. His face was pale, lips gray and unhappy. God, they had asked so much of him, to face so many terrors, and now they were asking him to face one of his greatest fears.  He paused, mouth working as if there were things he wanted to say, but Sav was already sweating and there was no time.

“Go,” Sav said. He was straining with it, unnaturally. Jaime’d seen him do this before, and it had never seemed this hard. “Go now!”

Tony nodded, slammed his faceplate into place and dashed for the portal.

Just as Tony’s foot passed the event horizon, Ellie gasped.

“Shit! Shit, Jaime,” she yelled, reaching out as if to grab Tony and haul him back.

“Someone’s fighting me,” Sav gasped, falling to his knees, hands held perfectly still, arms shaking as he tried to maintain the portal before it cut Tony in half. “Someone’s grabbed the timestream. Holy shit, TONY, MOVE!”

“You have to go after him!” Ellie was next to Jaime, pointing desperately. “It’s Von Doom. He’s grabbed the portal; they’re gonna pull him to _them_.”

Zoya, her brilliant mind making connections faster than light, turned to Jaime. “Von Doom could circumvent the scorpion. He…”

“Jaime, go! You have to stop them. He needs you!”

Jaime didn’t have time to kiss his lover goodbye, to say anything to his family. He knew what this meant and--

He ran, faster than he’d ever run before, air burning in his chest. His armor built itself around him as he moved, screaming with the agony. At the very last second, he left the ground and dove through the collapsing portal, repulsors whining with effort.

***

_Tony - 2019_

The first thing that happened when Tony was back in the present-day New York was his chin meeting the ground when someone plowed into him, full force, from behind. Except when he looked up, they weren’t in New York at all. His suit calibrated, syncing with Stark Industries satellites as the HUD came online. Doomstadt, Latveria.

“Oh, we’re fucked,” Jaime said behind him. Jaime? What the actual fuck?

The date flickered in the HUD; they were _months_ off the mark. Had Jaime thrown them off course?

“What the hell?” Tony demanded. “Why are you-- WHAT THE HELL, JAIME?” He climbed laboriously to his feet.

“Doom is pleased to welcome you to Latveria, Mr. Stark,” Doom said, looking down at them. He snapped his fingers and the -- courtyard? -- was filled with Doombots.

“ _That_ , the hell,” Jaime said, the black and red faceplate tipping to stare up at M.O.D.O.K., floating ominously at Doom’s side.

God damn it, had he made it home only to walk into his own death immediately? Well. Death before dishonor, and all that, he supposed. That was why he’d let them put the scorpion in his spine, wasn’t it? “Gentlemen,” he said, trusting the suit’s modulator to strip out some of the sarcasm. “I promise this isn’t an action against Latveria. Just a portal malfunction. Give us a minute and we’ll vacate your borders.” It wouldn’t work, of course, but if they were letting him talk, then it gave him that much more time to bring all the suit’s functions back online, and finish the uplink to the satellite that connected the suit to--

“JARVIS,” Jaime was murmuring over his own suit comms. “JARVIS, can you hear me? Initiate breakaway packet Zeta-fourteen-omega. We need an extract and we need it ten minutes ago.”

Doom rubbed his gauntleted hands together. “Do not even try to contact your friends,” he said. “Doom has prepared for your arrival. Communications are locked down. You will surrender to Doom, as you should have years ago. M.O.D.O.K., take him.”

Yeah, okay, so much for the veneer of diplomacy. Tony lifted a hand and felt the repulsor thrum against his palm. “Over my dead body.”

 


	16. War Without End (Part 2)

> _Ivanova: C'mon c'mon, grab what you need. We're running out of time.  
>  Zathras: Cannot run out of time. There is infinite time. You are finite. Zathras is finite. _This _is wrong tool. No, no, never use this._

 

_Jaime - 2019_

The building alarms went off, and JARVIS’ voice came over the speakers in the workshop. “Young sir, when this is over, I shall be wanting to have a very long discussion with you about appropriate behavior.” JARVIS sounded cross.

“What did I do now?” Jaime asked, not looking up from the kid-sized repulsor boots he was putting the finishing touches on. No one had bothered him in the ‘shop now for weeks and he’d taken the opportunity to experiment.

“Compromised my communications systems. Again,” JARVIS said. “In this case, however, I am inclined to be lenient, as your future self has just alerted us that Mr. Stark is returned. Unfortunately, however, he is in Latveria. Please take yourself upstairs, where your sister can watch after you and your brother while the Avengers retrieve him.”

Jaime grabbed the boots and gauntlets. They weren’t quite finished yet, but... “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “Override tee-aich-ex, one one three eight, Luke Skywalker initiative. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”

JARVIS fell silent as Jaime stepped into the boots, letting them lock around his ankles, and pulled the gauntlets on. The Avengers would be reporting to the Quinjet as soon as they could get geared up. He didn’t have much time.

Jaime raced to the stairwell and flew up the center, headed for the hangar.

***

_Bruce_

As a rule, Bruce hated missions where the Hulk was going to be needed. It meant that the danger outweighed the Hulk’s potential for destruction. It meant the risk to his family was particularly high. It meant coming back to himself with that black uncertainty hanging over him: how many had he killed this time?

But the few grainy images Tony’s suit had managed to transmit before Doom’s communications disruption had cut them off suggested there were no civilians. Just Castle Doom, a company of Doombots, M.O.D.O.K., and Doom himself.

The Hulk was practically salivating at the chance to smash any -- all -- of those. Bruce was shaking with the effort to keep him down until they were in Latverian airspace. He hoped Steve would have the sense to open the bay door as soon as they decelerated, because the Hulk was going to burst through it whether it was open or not.

He said as much to Natasha, hoping she’d pass the word for him -- Bruce couldn’t focus on conversation right now, especially conversation with Steve, who would immediately want to dig into the whys and hows. But Natasha just grinned at him. “Tony’ll fix it,” she said happily.

Bruce was startled into a laugh, and the Hulk subsided -- not much, but just enough that Bruce no longer felt his skin stretching and rippling.

They were going to get Tony back. The mood in the ‘jet was lighthearted, for all the review of how to avoid M.O.D.O.K.’s control and recognize Doom’s magical attacks. Tony’s absence had been hard on them all.

Everyone except for Jessica and Bruce was going to remain behind until M.O.D.O.K. had been dealt with. Bruce smirked to himself. The Hulk wasn’t precisely _immune_ , but he was strong-willed enough that M.O.D.O.K. couldn’t control Hulk at the same time as anyone else. It was a calculated gamble, putting the Hulk on the field and trusting the rest of the team to target M.O.D.O.K. if he started centering his focus on Hulk.

The Hulk snarled restlessly in the back of Bruce’s head. _Too much talk, too much think! Just smash!_

He felt the deceleration even before the tenor of Steve shifted into pre-battle rundown mode. The Hulk pushed at Bruce, pressed against the inside of his skin.

_NOW._

_Not yet not yet not yet..._

_NOW!_

The hatch was cracking open, the scream of wind almost drowning out Steve’s voice.

_NOW!_

Yes. Now.

The instant the bay door was wide enough, Bruce shouldered past Jones and threw himself out into the air, feeling the change taking him--

Smash Doom! Smash Bighead! Smash Doombots!

Doom hurt Tinman. Bighead hurt Tinman. Doombots bad.

Smash.

_Smash_.

_SMASH._

Doombots smashed. Ground smashed. Hulk laughed. Hulk smashed more Doombots.

Tinman smashed Doombot. Hulk laughed.

Doom made fire. Hulk growled. Doom ducked. Hulk growled again, and roared, triumphant.

Tinman have friend. No smash Tinman-friend!

Bighead squealed. Bighead mad. Not madder than Hulk. Hulk maddest! Hulk roared. Doombot smashed. Tinman-friend smashed Doombot. Hulk liked Tinman-friend. Tinman-friend helped Tinman. Good.

Hulk, Tinman, Tinman-friend. Fight Doom, Bighead, Doombots.

Easy.

_Smash._

***

_Bucky_

It was all Bucky could do not to jump out after Hulk, his fingers biting into the arms of his seat so hard that he felt the metal twist and strain under his grip. Tony was down there, so close, and Bucky had to just let him be down there. Alone.

“--us Christ,” a voice crackled over the comms. That wasn’t Tony, but it was tantalizingly familiar. “Never seen Bruce let it go like this before.” The voice laughed, delighted.

Tony wasn’t alone. Who the fuck was that?

… _come down and play_...

Bucky tilted his head, listening. Something was whispering to him, between his ears where there… his hands loosened their grip on the arms of the chair, weight shifted.

… _your master needs your help..._

“Bucky, what the hell?” Steve’s voice in his ear, then, harsher. “Winter Soldier, stand down!”

A wavering image, red and gold armor. His master was being threatened. Bucky drew his weapon, shoved it at the person who was standing in his way.

“Move!”

He jumped, rolling into the fall and landing with a pained groan, the ground eating some of the impact. He coughed, laying there, staring at grass and…

… _get up, worm..._

Bucky staggered to his feet. He was going, he was going… to kill… someone.

“Oh, fuck me running,” a woman’s voice said over the comms. “M.O.D.O.K.’s got the damn Winter Soldier. Steve, I’m dropping to intercept. Steve? Cowboy?”

Wasn’t important. Only the mission was important. Bucky stormed into the keep’s courtyard. He had Judas rounds in his rifle; they could punch a hole in even the Hulk.

The Quinjet’s engines screamed overhead.

“I got them, Aunt Jess,” Jaime’s voice, his son, _his son goddammit_ , came over the line. “Get Father. I’ll get them out of range.”

“Holy shit, I’m taking orders from a twelve-year-old,” the woman said, and then there was a pale purple and gray blur in the sky.

Not important. Only the mission. Bucky went down to one knee, brought his rifle up. He let the cool settle over him, his heart slowing, breath pulled in, nice and easy. Hulk first.

“Tony!” Someone yelled, and Bucky’s concentration faltered. Tony? Where? He’d been looking, looking _so long_. “The amplifier! M.O.D.O.K.’s got it, he’s got Father, you… shit, ow. GET it.”

… _do your job, worm..._

“Doom shall have that which belongs to him.” That voice drew a shiver across Bucky’s spine, a frisson of cold and anger and… he shifted his weapon, lining up that green cloak, that silver armor. Doom had always, _always_ been his enemy.

Someone grabbed him, hard, jerked him upward. Bucky twisted in her grip. A woman, black hair tied back in a braid. “Come on, come on, don’t fight me,” she was chanting under her breath. Damn _straight_ Bucky was going to fight her. No one yanked him around without his permission. He pulled his feet up, rolling into a skin-the-cat and planted his boots against her abdomen, shoving her away.

She cursed, dropped him as the fragile bones in her wrist snapped under the pressure. He hit the ground, knocking all the breath out of his lungs. Gun, gun, where was his rifle? He rolled over, groaning in a breath, then two. His hands combed through the tangle of bushes, searching.

Bucky’s hand closed around the rifle. A rattle of voices in his head, exclamations, a boy talking fast, explaining. Not important. Bucky tucked his chin and ran back the way he’d come. His master needed him.

He paused. Iron Man was pinned down, Doom holding him in place with a spread-fingered gesture.

“Find it, find it,” M.O.D.O.K. was saying. “He’s blocking M.O.D.O.K. He has a device.”

“Shit, Dad, NO!” The black and red armored man was there, the one who’d taken Tony from him. The one who’d taken _everything_ from him.

Bucky dropped down again. He knew who his enemy was. The armor came into focus in his scope. One shot and everything would be all right again. Everything was going to be just. Fine.

His finger ghosted down over the trigger.

The Hulk was there, again, grabbing Von Doom and throwing him aside like a toy. A very fast-moving toy. Bucky was forced to abandon his stance and roll out of the way as Von Doom crashed into the ground where Bucky had been only half a second before.

“You!” Bucky startled, badly. What the hell was he _doing_ here? He… couldn’t… Von Doom was right in front of him, mask cracked, revealing half of his face.

Hulk stopped roaring. His enormous feet thudded against the ground.

“You won’t win,” Von Doom croaked. “M.O.D.O.K. has the Hulk now. You’re dead. You just haven’t figured that out yet.”

“You first, asshole,” Bucky said as Doom’s head filled up his sights.

“No, no, no,” the man in the red and black armor said. “You’re not winning this time. I’m not… I’m not going to watch him die a second time.”

“Jaime, _no!_ ” Tony? That was _Tony_ screaming, and--

Everything went white.

When Bucky came back to himself, his head was empty. Voiceless. Doom was no longer on the ground in front of him. He shook himself. In the courtyard, Doom was stalking toward a downed M.O.D.O.K., Tony -- oh, god, _Tony_ , Bucky had missed him so much -- was there, helmet gone, still thinning out the crowd of Doombots while Hulk was tearing up the ground, apparently gone enough that he didn’t know what he was fighting anymore.

The guy in the black and red armor was there, armor dripping blood as he staggered forward a step. “I did it,” he said, soft and reverent, looking at M.O.D.O.K., then back up to Tony. “I --”

Doom drew a glowing black and green sword from nowhere, magical and malevolent, the sound of it singing destruction in the air as he swung. The armored man arched up screaming, the blade exploded out the front of his armor. He coughed, the face plate peeling back to reveal -- Bucky?

Bucky blinked, trying to figure out what he was looking at.

“Jaime, Jaime, no!” Tony shouted.

Von Doom shook his magical blade, slinging the figure away like it was trash. Doom glanced up; the rest of the Avengers were on their way. M.O.D.O.K. was down, it was all part of the plan. What the hell was Bucky doing down here, what had…

_Shit_.

He’d been taken again, of course he had. Bucky struggled to pull his wits back together; M.O.D.O.K. must have still been holding him when it died.

“Doom will have you, one day, Stark,” Doom promised, then the air around him shimmered and Doom vanished.

“Never,” Tony gritted, but he wasn’t watching Doom. His eyes were on the man in the armor who looked -- not quite exactly like Bucky, but _so close_ , as if they were--

“I did it,” the man said again, weak and breathy with pain.

“You did,” Tony said. He knelt beside the fallen man. Tears were rolling down his face. “You did it, you saved us. You saved _everyone_.”

“Knew this was a one way trip,” the man said, struggling to speak, his mouth full of blood. The man’s single eye looked around, focused on… on Bucky.

Bucky came up behind them, slow, uncertain. He didn’t understand what was happening. “Tony?”

Tony looked up at him and smiled, but he didn’t stand. He held out a hand, reaching for Bucky’s, instead. “Hey, sweetheart. Come here. Say... say thank you. Before he’s gone.”

The touch of Tony’s hand was healing; his wounded, aching, broken heart started beating again. He could breathe again. “Who is --”

His eye fluttered shut, then open again and he coughed up another mouthful of blood, sticky and black. Bucky had seen enough wounds in his life, there was no help for the man. “Father…” the man gasped.

Bucky recognized him, then. “What -- Jaime? How the --”

“Kept my promise,” Jaime said, then inhaled. His single eye lost focus and his breath came out slow, slow. And stopped.

Tony stared, then pulled Bucky to him with startling and desperate strength, pushing his face into Bucky’s neck, heedless of armor and dirt and everything else. “Oh god oh god oh god oh god,” he gasped. “It’s not... it’s not going to happen. It _can’t_ , but he--” His words dissolved into choked tears.

Nothing made sense, but Bucky didn’t care, he didn’t care at all. Tony was back in his arms, and nothing else mattered at all. He rocked Tony, feeling the heat of his skin, the sweaty mess of his hair. “Oh, god, Tony, Tony, _baby_ , where have you been?”

It took Tony a few minutes to catch his breath, to seem to even hear the question. He looked up and around, at the carnage of blood and broken Doombots, then back at Bucky. “The future,” he said. “ _A_ future. One that can’t happen now.” He glanced at the dead man beside them and pressed his lips together. “Sorry if I worried you, sweetheart.”

And then Steve was there. “We have a problem,” he said, low. “If I’m following this correctly, um, Tony… I don’t.” Steve coughed and stretched out a blanket that he’d snatched from the Quinjet, one of Bruce’s, and covered the body. “Strange was very clear on paradox as a problem, and Jaime is in the _Quinjet._ ”

Tony stiffened. “What the fuck is he doing-- No, never mind, just--” He swallowed, looked around again. Bucky followed his gaze: the fallen M.O.D.O.K., the remnants of the Doombots, the castle, far too close for comfort. “Let’s get out of here,” Tony said. “Let’s go home. I’ll explain what I can on the way.” He bit down on his lip, then looked at the armored body. “Wrap him up and bring him. Doom can’t have him, and he sure as hell can’t have the tech. We’ll put him in the medpod so the kid can’t see him. If that doesn’t solve the paradox problem, well, Strange can bite my armored ass.”

Bucky kept his hand in Tony’s the whole time. No way in fucking hell was he ever letting go again. He jerked his chin at Steve, who wrapped up the dead man and lifted him. “Where’s Jones? I think I --”

“Broke my wrist, you son of a bitch,” she said, staggering toward them. She stomped over and kicked the dead M.O.D.O.K. in the face. She glared at everyone indiscriminately.

“I’ve got Bruce,” Tash reported over comms.

“I’ve landed just outside the compound,” Jaime’s voice came over the comms, boyish and trembling.

“And you,” Bucky said. “ _You_ are grounded, for like the rest of your life.”

“But I _helped_ ,” Jaime protested.

“Fine,” Tony said, voice still rough with grief. “Extra dessert tonight. But I just watched you die, so you’re still grounded.”

 


	17. Sleeping in Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut warning! The smut-averse may bow out when it starts getting steamy (shortly after the "Chipmunk Chick" crack) as nothing else plotty happens afterward.

 

> _Ivanova: It changed the future… and it changed us. It taught us that we have to create the future, or others would do it for us. It showed us that we have to care for one another, because if we don't, who will? And that true strength sometimes comes from the most… unlikely places. Mostly though, I think it gave us hope—that there can always be new beginnings… even for people like us._

 

_Tony_

Bucky, who was tactile and touch-prone most of the time anyway, followed Tony around with the dedication of a baby duck that had recently imprinted, rarely more than a foot outside of Tony’s personal space, and usually much, much closer, as Tony went through the whole rigmarole that went along with battle, stowing his gear, avoiding medical, making arrangements for the elder Jaime’s body.

Rikki met them at the elevator, shoved Sasha into Tony’s arms, and glared. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t care. I’m just assuming it’s _all your fault_. We’re going back to Xavier’s now.” She slung her arm around Ellie’s neck and stormed off.

Bucky rolled his eyes at the theatrics, but Tony was oddly charmed. Rikki had always seemed young to him, but now she seemed younger than ever. He caught Ellie looking at him before they turned, though, and Ellie’s eyes were ancient and sad and warm, as if she _knew_. Maybe she did.

Bucky hovered at Tony’s elbow, kept a hand on Tony’s arm or shoulder or knee or waist while Tony sat with the team for a debrief that he kept as short as he could, not wanting to relive any more than necessary of the anguish and grief. He had to keep looking at Bucky despite the constant contact to reassure himself that it was real, that he was home, that Bucky was alive and well. Every time he looked, Bucky was looking back, watching hungrily.

Jaime hadn’t asked Tony to read to him at bedtime for a couple of years, but when he suggested disingenuously that Sasha might enjoy it, they all four squeezed onto Jaime’s bed, Sasha on Bucky’s lap as Bucky leaned on Tony’s left shoulder, and Jaime curled close on Tony’s right. Tony read for over an hour, unwilling -- un _able_ \-- to let the boys out of his sight. But finally even Jaime drifted off and Bucky gently tugged the book from his hand.

They nudged Jaime into a more comfortable position and tucked Sasha in at Jaime’s side, and then Bucky took Tony’s hand, laced their fingers together, and pulled him gently but insistently back to the penthouse.

The penthouse was immaculate. And strangely neglected, like the air hadn’t moved in weeks. The bed was made and the floor was clean and there was no dust, but the rooms had an abandoned atmosphere, sterile. Stale. Funereal, even.

“You’ve been sleeping somewhere else,” Tony said.

“In the bolthole,” Bucky agreed with a strained, short laugh, “when I’ve been able to sleep at all.” Bucky pulled Tony through the bedroom and into the bathroom, crowding Tony up against the sink and beginning to strip him with shaking hands. “Don’t think I’ve been up here since maybe the third day you were gone. It just reminded me that you weren’t here. Couldn’t... Just couldn’t.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Tony soothed. “I’m back now, sweetheart. I’m back, you’ve got me.”

Bucky dropped Tony’s shirt on the floor and then rested his forehead against Tony’s, breathing so perfectly steady that Tony knew he was counting seconds and timing the breaths to keep them from spiraling into panicked panting. “I’ve got you,” he repeated, voice cracking. “I’ve got you. I... God, Tony, I... I want...” He bit his lip.

Tony nuzzled in to kiss him, teasing his lip back out from under his teeth. “Yeah, baby,” he said softly. Whole months, Tony had been gone, instead of only a few minutes. Bucky’s reaction had not been hard to read in the way the others kept watching them both. Tony ached to soothe that pain, somehow. “Yes. Whatever it is you want, yes. Anything you need, anything you want, it’s yours.”

Bucky wrapped his arms around Tony, pulling Tony in close. “I wanna take care of you,” he confessed, and Tony could feel the heat of his flush, even after years together. “Clean you up and dry you off, then take you to bed and make love to you, and hold you all night so I can feel your heart beating under my hand.”

“Yes,” Tony said again. He leaned back, propping his hands on either side of the sink, and tipped back his head to expose his throat. “God, yes, Bucky.”

“Tell me this is real, baby,” Bucky said, voice shaking, then kissed Tony’s throat, everywhere he could reach, tasting the skin, sucking dark bruises to the surface, hands everywhere, shivering and trembling the whole time. “Tell me you’re really here. So many dreams, just to wake up and find you were gone, or one of… one of Strange’s stupid notes, too many nights layin’ on that damn table, counting marks. Tell me you’re home.”

“It’s me, sweetheart, I’m real, I’m here.” Tony twined his fingers into Bucky’s hair and then curled his hands into fists, pulling the hair tight, dragging Bucky up to kiss him, hot and wet and dirty and as _real_ as he could make it. “It’s me,” he said into Bucky’s mouth. “I’m home.”

“JARVIS, shower please,” Bucky said, peeling the rest of Tony’s clothes off, hands easy, gentle.

“Of course, Mr. Barnes-Stark,” JARVIS said, starting up the water.

Bucky stripped fast. He scraped his hands through his hair, pushing it back from his face, eyes barely blinking, as if worried that if he looked away too long, Tony would vanish again. He nudged Tony into the shower, then…

Ran a finger down his spine. “What’s this?” His finger barely poked the mark, just along Tony’s vertebrae, right between his shoulder blades.

Tony flinched, just a little; the incision was still healing and tender. “Told you all, the future was fucked up because M.O.D.O.K. had gotten his hooks in me,” he sighed. “There’s a device there, now, that keeps his telepathy from reaching my brain. I helped design it.”

Bucky traced the line again, finger just a bare ghost on the surface of his skin. “Kept you and Jaime alive, until we could get to you? Uncontrolled?” He pressed a kiss on one side of the scar, then the other. “You know that’s nothin’ I would ever want for you, not ever. Bein’ used as someone else’s weapon.”

Tony knew that, but damn if that wasn’t so close to the surface that it scraped jagged nails through his chest and closed a fist around his throat. He leaned his forehead against the tile wall and made himself breathe. “They made me kill you,” he whispered. “Him, I mean. The other me. He was... broken, after that.”

“I just fuckin’ bet he was,” Bucky said, swallowing hard. “I… it’s not gonna happen, right? You fixed it, like you always do…”

Tony let his shoulders ripple into a shrug. “Hope so. This is... Well, it worked today. Never even heard a whisper. And he’s dead now. But...” He sighed. Bucky wouldn’t like this, but they’d sworn not to keep secrets, and this one... “Device has a kill switch,” he said. He turned his head until he could see Bucky’s face, eyes already widening. “To prevent tampering. I designed that part of it, too.”

Bucky’s face stilled. “Define _tampering_.”

“Someone trying to remove it. Or taking pieces out of the structure. It won’t go off from normal wear-and-tear. I get slammed around in the armor enough to not need _that_ to worry about.”

Bucky turned Tony around, very gently, his eyes wide. “Was it that bad? That bad, Tony, to risk your _life_ for it?”

Tony closed his eyes, then made himself look up again. “You weren’t the only casualty,” he said. “Just the first. Natasha, Clint, Sam, Xavier, _Bruce_... He made me conquer the fucking _world_ , Bucky. I can’t let that happen. It was... It was _every bit_ as bad as that.”

Bucky nodded, slow. “When I found out what I’d done, under Hydra… I’d have been _grateful_ if someone had put a bullet in me.”

The ache was almost unbearable. Tony brushed his fingers across Bucky’s face. “I’m pretty sure the only reason he was still alive was because he saw a chance to fix things... and because Rikki kept throwing you in his face.” He smiled, a little, remembering it. “That if you could bear living with what you had done, then he could do it, too.”

Bucky almost laughed, a quick movement and a flash of smile. “My Rikki? She’s a hell of a trooper, all right. She might hate every second of it, but she can’t stand to leave responsibility layin’ around and not pick it up. I… ought to do somethin’ for her. She took up my slack, while you were gone.”

Tony smiled. “Good. Glad you could rely on her. The kids, they were all... God, they were amazing, Bucky. All of ‘em. Rikki and Ellie, and Jaime, and Zoya, and -- Christ, wait’ll I tell you about Sasha.”

“Yeah?” Bucky asked. He soaped up a washcloth and started scrubbing Tony down, careful to avoid the still-healing wound on his back. “He learned to talk, while you were gone.”

“He--” Tony grabbed at Bucky’s arm. “He did? He talked? You heard him?”

Bucky nodded, slow. “Everyone else heard him later, but I heard him first. Hold still, jeez. Do they not have showers in the future?”

“He said,” Tony gasped. “He told me that you never heard him speak. Before you... before I, _he_ killed you. But you have.” He couldn’t explain why it was this small detail that felt so momentous, like a confirmation that they’d succeeded in altering that terrible future, even though M.O.D.O.K. was already dead. But it did.

Bucky shrugged, one shoulder moving, and he didn’t quite meet Tony’s gaze. “He had somethin’ to say that I needed to hear,” Bucky said.

“Well, you always did say he’d speak up when he had something to say,” Tony said. He caught Bucky’s face in his hands. “What is it, honey?”

“I almost gave up on you, baby,” he admitted. “Didn’t think you were comin’ back. Thought you were dead. _Hoped_ you were, even, ‘cause I couldn’t see anything good comin’ of someone holding you prisoner so long.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony said, for at least the tenth time, because he _was_. “It wasn’t supposed to be so long. I was supposed to get sent back to right after they took me, so you wouldn’t even have time to worry. But the trip back got... tampered with, I guess. I’d never have left you so long.”

Bucky’s eyes went flat. “Doom. _Fuck_.” His arm clicked and whirred as the servos flexed.

Tony shuddered. “Could be. Probably, even, since I ended up in the middle of his courtyard. I’d’ve been well and truly fucked if Jaime hadn’t barreled in.”

Bucky looked like he was going to choke on his words. “Fuck, Tony. Fuck. I did this to us. _Fuck_.”

That... made no sense at all. “What are you talking about?”

Bucky scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I went to him for help.”

“You what?”

“Doom built a time machine, okay? We knew that. He got around the paradox problem. Strange… wouldn’t help us. _Couldn’t_. I was pretty damn desperate, Tony. And he… I dunno, he wants you. I thought he might be persuaded to help.”

Tony stared at Bucky. Couldn’t stop. Couldn’t even manage to blink. For Bucky to have been desperate enough to go to Victor Von Fucking Doom for _help_... Never mind that it was the worst idea in an entire planet of bad ideas -- it was barely even _comprehensible_. “Jesus, Bucky,” he breathed.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “I got the riot act already. Jessica about brought the roof down on us, given that I dragged Steve with me.”

“Of course you did,” Tony sputtered, suddenly laughing. “Oh my god, worst diplomatic team _ever_.” He had to lean against the wall, he was laughing so hard.

Bucky looked… extremely relieved. “Hey, I want credit for the fact that I had a _master_ extraction plan in place, okay? That we had to use it, less great, but… you should have seen Doom’s fucking face when Doreen walked in.”

“Oh my god of _course_ you had Chipmunk Chick swoop in to save your asses!” Tony was all but howling. “Oh, god, sweetheart, I love you, but _Jesus fucking Christ_.”

“He played me,” Bucky admitted. “I dunno, maybe he wanted to see me beg for it, but… I’m sorry. We didn’t know. We didn’t know who took you, not for another, damn, almost two weeks after that, when Sasha pulled his magic trick. I thought...” He ran a slow hand down the side of Tony’s face, not being able to help the smile that was teased out of him by the sound of Tony’s laugh. “I thought that someone could have had you that long and was hurting you. I couldn’t live with that, if I didn’t try.”

“It’s okay,” Tony said. He pulled Bucky in and kissed him, soft and chaste. “It’s all right. I’m back, and it’s all done and over.”

Bucky kissed him back, light pressure and tender touches, and then suddenly it wasn’t enough and Tony found himself shoved against the wall. Rough, invading kisses forced his mouth open, tasted him, lips moving fast, memorizing the shape of his mouth. Bucky tugged light on Tony’s lower lip with his teeth, then licked over the spot. “I missed you, Tony. Missed you so much, I don’t… I don’t know how to be without you anymore.”

“Missed you too,” Tony sighed, letting his hands slide across Bucky’s skin. “Was only gone six days, on my end, but every minute, I needed you. Never faded. Not for him, either. The other me. It’s how I know you’re under my skin for good. Nothing’s ever going to pull you out of me.”

Bucky groaned at that, drawing one of Tony’s legs up to hook around Bucky’s hip, grinding slow up against him. He laced their fingers together and stretched up, pinning Tony’s wrist to the wall, then kissed him again, rocking against Tony’s body, his kiss slow, teasing, nipping at Tony’s mouth and forcing him to chase down the kiss, then sighing into it whenever Tony caught him. “Tell me you need it, Tony,” Bucky pleaded. “Tell me you want me.”

“Like I’ve never wanted anything before,” Tony swore. “Fuck, what you do to me, baby... Need you like I need air.” He squeezed Bucky’s fingers, pushed his shoulders against the wall and wrapped both legs around Bucky’s waist, knowing Bucky could hold him easily, needing the closeness, the feel of Bucky’s body against his.

Bucky groaned again, deeper, needy. He arched against Tony’s body, pressing them together, purring with pleasure as he stroked, rubbing their cocks together, heat and pressure and friction, aided by the slick wet of the shower. Urging Tony on with words, with touches, with searing kisses, seeking more, wanting more.

 _More_.

Growling, almost snarling in Tony’s ear, Bucky thrust up against him, a wordless plea that spoke less of delicate things like desire and passion and more of thirst, hunger, _craving_. Bucky kissed him, slow and soft, lips feathering over Tony’s as his hips moved, back and forth, ebb and flow, like the raw savagery of the ocean’s tides. “Need you, I need, Tony, I need…”

“Yeah, come on, baby,” Tony panted, rolling his hips as much as he could to push back against Bucky. “Come on, need you too, need to feel you... Come on, soldier, come for me.”

Bucky licked his way into Tony’s mouth, matching the thrusts of his tongue against Tony’s with the rolling pace of his hips, dragging the breath right out of Tony’s lungs for one final, arching stroke. He shivered, pulled his mouth away from Tony’s to gasp for air, then cried out, needy and high and fervent. His cock jumped against Tony’s stomach as he came, spurting wetness against Tony’s skin that was washed away in the next second. “Oh, god,” Bucky gasped. “God… Tony.” He shuddered again and buried his face against Tony’s throat.

Tony nuzzled the side of Bucky’s face and carefully lowered his legs, tugged gently at his hands until Bucky let go and then wrapped them around Bucky’s neck instead. “I’m here,” Tony said. “I’m home.” He kissed Bucky’s jaw. “Come on, soldier, take me to bed.’’

Bucky nodded, wordless, then stepped back to let Tony out. “You’re home,” he said, finally, and then followed Tony into the bedroom, one hand reaching out for him, not even able to let Tony get more than a step away.

***

_Bucky_

_If I’m dreaming, let me sleep forever._

The refrain kept dancing in his head, just out of reach, that this wasn’t real, that Tony could not, would not, ever return, and that this was just a brief interlude before he had to return to the cold reality that was his life now, Tony-less and sterile.

He couldn’t get enough; the feel of Tony’s skin under his palm, the rich scent of his hair, the thrill of his voice singing along Bucky’s nerves, the salt and sweet taste of his skin, the sight of those clean, flat muscles and rich brown eyes and wide, beaming smile. Five senses and Bucky couldn’t get his fill of any of them. A gaping hole in his chest that could never be satisfied.

Tony tumbled into the bed and Bucky was right after him, drawing himself over Tony’s damp, naked form like a blanket. Tony squirmed under him, getting comfortable, and Bucky fit into the hollows and dips and rises of his body like they were made to be together, that they’d been specifically designed. The way Tony’s head tucked just under Bucky’s chin, the way his arms went carelessly around Bucky’s waist, holding him; the easy cradle formed by Tony’s legs that exactly matched Bucky’s hips.

… _don’t let me wake up._

Tony sighed and snuggled in, and suddenly there was no more thought of metaphor. Tony’s warmth, his taste, his skin next to Bucky’s -- pure, primal need overrode everything else. Bucky lowered his mouth to Tony’s. Their tongues met, entwined, sparking a deep groan of need. His hands entangled in Tony’s hair, the soft locks tickling against his palms. Bucky opened himself up to the kiss, taking everything Tony had to offer, giving everything that Bucky was over to those movements of lip and tongue.

“Bucky,” Tony gasped. “Bucky, god, _yes_.” His whole body was in motion, his hips rocking up against Bucky’s, his hands moving over Bucky’s back. “Please,” Tony begged.

Bucky dragged his mouth over the hinge of Tony’s jaw, breathed hot into Tony’s ear and licked at the pulse-point just under it.

Tony’s back arched and his head fell back, baring his throat -- an offering and a demand in one, a siren call that Bucky couldn’t resist even _before_ Tony had gone missing.

Bucky took what was offered, his mouth coming down on Tony’s windpipe, closing gently, possessing, demanding. Tony was _his_ , dammit. Tony belonged to him just as thoroughly as he belonged to Tony. Absolute trust; even Steve flinched around Bucky from time to time, usually if the Winter Soldier surged up unexpectedly. It was with Tony, and only for Tony, that Bucky could be everything that he was. No fear. As long as they were together…

_Don’t wake me..._

Bucky released his hold, drawing back to touch and explore, kiss every inch of Tony’s olive skin he could reach. He licked down Tony’s shoulder, then sucked a bruise just under his collarbone, marking his territory. He drew back to look at it with a possessive smirk. “ _Mine_.”

Tony shivered, his eyes tracking Bucky’s every movement. “All yours,” he agreed hoarsely. He arched up to nuzzle into the curve of Bucky’s neck, teeth scraping delicately over the skin, licking at Bucky’s pulse. “More,” he begged. “I need... Please, baby.”

So pretty, when Tony was desperate, needy, wanting. Bucky couldn’t bear to look away, and at the same time, he was going to come undone if he kept staring at Tony’s face. Desperately unfair. Bucky whined, deep in his throat, and slid down Tony’s body, hands roaming to trace lines over sensitive skin, to trace circles around and over Tony’s nipples, then down lower. He followed those lines with his mouth, licking, then sucking. He teased Tony’s nipple to an aching, hard peak, then stayed there, ignoring all of Tony’s attempts to push him lower, enjoying the way Tony squirmed under him, the texture of the taut skin under his tongue. He alternated, using his metal fingers until they were heated from Tony’s skin.

“Oh god, _fuck_ , Bucky...” Tony clenched his fists in Bucky’s hair and writhed, whining in desperation. “Shit, _fuck_ , oh Christ, what are you _doing_ to me?” He tried again to direct Bucky’s movement, and failed, again.

 _Worshipping you_ , Bucky thought and didn’t say, because he had too much to do with his mouth right now that words interfered with. Instead, he worked his way down Tony’s chest, sucking a row of bruises like prayer beads, listing everything that he’d missed about Tony as he touched each red mark with his tongue until he was cradled down between Tony’s legs and nipping a line along the curve of his hip.

Tony’s wit, his perfect mouth, the crazy way he jumped from a handful of facts to a theory, the completely unselfish way he took care of everyone on the team. Stupidly bad food choices (seriously, what sort of weirdo put ketchup on cut corn?). His adoration for coffee. The way he threatened the bots with dismemberment on a regular basis and how that was tied back into a fierce love for all of his creations. Each smile, of which there were a double dozen varieties.

“Oh, Tony,” Bucky murmured, kissing that flat skin just below Tony’s navel. “God, I was goin’ crazy without you, baby. Gone, really.”

“Got me now,” Tony panted, stroking almost clumsily through Bucky’s hair. He wasn’t trying to push him now, though his hands still clenched and loosened restlessly, and the frantic cursing had faded into a softer litany of moaned and hitched breaths and Bucky’s name, less demanding and more accepting. He’d tipped his head back and closed his eyes and while he was still beautifully, perfectly responsive, he also seemed to have dropped halfway into subspace, willing -- _able_ , for a change -- to just give himself to Bucky’s whims, to trust utterly in Bucky’s care.

Bucky shivered, then nuzzled at Tony’s skin, light and almost playful, covered his belly with tiny kitten licks, then ran his hands down Tony’s thighs, careful, feeling the plates in his palm shifting, keeping it light, so Tony could feel the metal’s movement, but not so close as to close the plates over his skin. “God, you’re beautiful,” he said, sliding back up to taste Tony’s mouth, honing his skill. He could never get enough of Tony’s mouth, perfect lips and quick, clever tongue. “So perfect, look at you, baby.” He closed his left hand slowly, letting the pressure build up as he stroked Tony’s thigh, the plates shifting again, brushing as they moved, against Tony’s flesh, watching carefully as Tony’s eyes moved under his lids, like dreaming awake.

“I got you, Tony,” Bucky said, low and rough, talking directly into Tony’s ear, then licked the shell. “So perfect.” He flexed his fingers again, careful, so careful, as the plate scraped, delicious friction.

Tony shuddered and groaned. “Ohgod, god, you know what that does to me... God... Love you so much, Bucky...” His voice trailed off into a whine as the plates shifted in time with the spill of hot breath against his ear. “Nnnnghhhh... Want you so much.”

“I know you do,” Bucky said. “I can almost taste how bad you want it. In fact, maybe I should. You want that, baby? Want me to taste you, take it all in, swallow you up?” Bucky shifted, felt around in the drawer, hoping they’d -- yep, there it was -- grabbed a container of lube and dropped it on the bed. He touched Tony’s lips light with his right hand, brushing his fingertips against Tony’s lower lip.

He moved, rolling them over until Tony was sprawled out on his chest.  “You want me to swallow your cock, Tony, you come up here and give it to me.”

Tony roused from his dreamy floating to smirk at Bucky. “Takes a special talent,” he said, carefully pushing himself up and crawling up the bed over Bucky’s torso, “to sound that domineering about asking me to fuck your mouth.” He laughed and traced Bucky’s lips with one fingers. “Your mouth is one of my favorite things about you, so.” He leaned against the headboard with one hand, and wrapped the other around the base of his cock. Bucky’d wound him up tight; he didn’t tease at all before pushing into Bucky’s mouth, eager but careful. “Oh, _god_.”

Bucky hummed thoughtfully around his mouthful of Tony, flicking his tongue lightly against that hot, velvet skin. He worked the cap off the lube and wet his fingers. Gently, pulling Tony closer, he traced a slick line down the crack of Tony’s ass, circling his hole in tiny, eager movements. He nudged Tony’s hips, dropping his jaw down. Oh, god, so sweet. Tony’s face was blissful, glorious, as he rolled his hips. In time with Tony’s thrusts, Bucky breached him, one finger pressing at the muscle.

“Oh, fuck, yes,” Tony hissed, pushing back against the intrusion, then stuttering forward again with a groan. “Fuck, Bucky, that’s-- ah! --good, so... So good. I’m not gonna last long, like this.” He put the other hand on the headboard as well, leaning into it, fucking into Bucky’s mouth with short, pulsing thrusts and then shoving back to impale himself on Bucky’s finger.

Bucky flexed his finger, seeking, then pressing, light and steady, working at Tony’s prostate, his left hand gripping Tony’s hip, keeping the rhythm until Tony was shuddering all over. He didn’t stop, didn’t want to, wanted to take Tony right up to the edge. He pressed his tongue flat against Tony’s cock and hummed, letting vibrations spill down Tony’s length. He sucked his cheeks in, then swallowed, feeling the head of Tony’s cock brushing against the back of his throat. He twisted his wrist, then added a second finger, straining to reach. _God,_ he wanted it all, wanted Tony to have everything.

Tony quivered and gasped, pinned by sensation. “Baby, I’m-- Oh, shit, oh god yes yes Bucky, sweetheart, I can’t, I can’t, I’m gonna--” He hitched in a breath and then let it out in a shout as he came, muscles going taut, and then suddenly he slumped, boneless. “Christ, I love you.”

“God, you’re sweet,” Bucky said, swallowing hard. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then helped Tony turn over and lay down. “So perfect, so… oh, god, Tony.” Bucky put one hand over the scar where the arc reactor had once been, feeling the pounding of Tony’s heart beneath the surface. “I got you. You’re right here.”  

Tony put his hand over Bucky’s, holding it in place as he panted. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m right here, with you. Right where I want to be. Where I need to be.” He lifted his head to capture Bucky’s mouth in a kiss, deep and sweet, licking the taste of himself off Bucky’s lips. “Come on,” he whispered, “need to feel you in me.”

With that, Bucky went crazy. He lunged at Tony, capturing his mouth and ravaged it, fierce in his hunger, unrelenting in his need. He wrapped his arm under Tony’s shoulders, pulled him into a tight embrace. He wasn’t delicate or tender. His hand went between Tony’s legs, no teasing this time, two fingers sliding into his ass, spreading and stretching, only barely patient enough to open him up. “God, god,” he groaned. Bucky’s lungs worked, taking great heaving breaths, straining to go slow enough, but god, it was hard. He wanted, needed, so much.

Finally, _finally_ it was enough, and he slicked himself up. He pressed the head of his cock against Tony’s hole, one hand pushing Tony’s thigh back to spread his legs. He bared his teeth, snarling with his ache. He rocked in, an inch, a little more. His left hand came down on Tony’s throat, not quite squeezing; not quite, but taking, taking more. Those metal fingers were held with absolute precision, and the throb of Tony’s pulse against the palm of his hand made him shiver with anticipation. It would never, ever be enough for him, but the increased pressure, the slick sounds they were making between them as Bucky rutted like the animal he was, was close.   

Tony swallowed, Adam’s apple working under Bucky’s hand, and his arms curled around Bucky’s shoulders, fingers pressing hard enough that on anyone else, they would be leaving bruises. On Bucky, it was only a moment of sweet ache as Tony pulled them together, hips rocking up, urging Bucky to move deeper and harder and faster.

Bucky threw back his head, savage in his pleasure. With a convulsive thrust, full force, aching and deep, he made a muffled shout and spilled himself into Tony, felt the clench of muscle as Tony’s body convulsed around him. He rocked into Tony, panting through the orgasm, eyes closed. He pulled Tony even closer, still needing. “Mine, you’re mine,” he growled, fingers tightening on Tony’s throat, the plates shifting in his palm.

He started to pull back, to pull out, but couldn’t bear to leave; still hard and huge and aching. “Not enough,” he groaned, “god, Tony, please…” He thrust in again, stroking hard, then pulled all the way out. He released his hold on Tony’s neck and nudged him over onto his belly. “Come on, come on, baby, raise up for me, I…”

Tony panted through a few hard breaths, then pushed up onto his knees, pillowing his head on folded arms. “Yours,” he promised, voice slightly rough. “Whatever you need, whatever you want, everything is yours.”

“Just you,” Bucky said, breath hot over Tony’s back as he sheathed himself in Tony’s body. The motion of his hips was restless, relentless, driving hard and steady. Pressure built again, deep in his spine, sending out jolts of almost unbearable pleasure. He shivered with it, more than mere sex, more than making love. It was transcendent, and far more elemental and necessary than any physical pleasure had ever been. Working in Tony didn’t ease the ache, climaxing didn’t sate him. He could never, ever have enough, and at the same time, the skin to skin touch was everything, filled the need. It was lustrous, intoxicating, he was drunk on it. He was devastated by it. Tremors of pure, crystal joy shook through him, turning the world on its head. “Tony, Tony, Tony,” he cried, and then finally, came again, one last, shuddering rush of bliss.

Tony groaned as Bucky filled him, clamping down, squeezing so hard it almost hurt. “Yes,” he gasped, “that’s it, that’s-- yeah, baby, I’ve got you. You’ve got me.” He reached back with one hand to curl his fingers into Bucky’s hair, thumb stroking at the back of Bucky’s neck. “I’m here.”

Bucky sighed, soft, and pulled out. He stroked his left hand down Tony’s spine, soothing and cool. “God, you amaze me,” he said. He scattered kisses down Tony’s back and eased him down onto the bed. “Love you, so much.” Tony was boneless, all loose limbs and panting breath, and Bucky couldn’t help it, drawn like a bee to a flower, and he claimed another deep, aching kiss before leaning back. “How do you feel, baby?”

Tony hummed and looked at Bucky with slitted eyes and a smug smile. “Well-fucked.”

Bucky pulled Tony into his arms, rested his head against Tony’s back and listened to his heart beat.

_Don’t let me wake up._

 


	18. Moments of Fire and Shadow

 

> _G'Kar: You picked a terrible moment in your social evolution to develop principles. Perhaps you can start with something simpler. The moral equivalent of the opposable thumb, for instance._

 

_Tony_

_Bitch better have my money!_  
_Y'all should know me well enough_  
_Bitch better have my money!_  
_Please don't call me on my bluff_  
_Pay me what you owe me_  
_Ballin' bigger than LeBron_  
_Bitch, give me your money_

Wade Wilson wasn’t an Avenger. And Tony had seen his hands before, the man didn’t even have what one would call a palm-print anymore. He was ravaged by disease, disfigured. Even before he’d gained some sort of immortality, he’d been little more than a cheap mercenary, brutal and foul-mouthed, but with spirit. Wade Wilson was a bastard, but he was a bastard who worked for good causes. Clint knew him better than the rest, and from time to time he’d slipped information to Natasha. He had a sort of big-brother, one-upmanship relationship with Ellie. Once or twice (or more often, really) there’d been situations where certain people who were funding villains but were well protected by laws had wound up dead in situations that were to the Avengers’ advantage. But he wasn’t a part of the team. No, Wade Wilson was not a team player, even if he was -- sort of -- a friend.

Nonetheless, he shouldn’t be sitting calmly in the Avenger’s Tower kitchen, having reheated a chimichanga in the microwave. He had the bottom of his mask rolled up, showing off his ruined jaw; only enough that he could eat. Unlike most of the costumed heroes and vigilantes, Wade wore his Deadpool costume most of the time. Other people’s attention was worse when he was dressed as a civilian.

“Stark,” he said as Tony staggered into the kitchen for his morning coffee, which Wade had, apparently, already poured for him. “Siddown.”

Tony squinted at Wilson, then sighed and sat at the table. He pulled the coffee mug close, cradling it like something precious as he breathed in the steam. He was pretty sure it was safe to drink. Mostly. Hell with it. Tony sipped. The coffee was still hot enough to scald his tongue and dark enough to make even Tony’s eyes widen. “Not bad,” he managed. “The hell are you doing in my kitchen at stupid o’clock in the morning, Wilson?”

Wilson raised one hand cautiously. “I’m gonna reach in my pocket, but I ain’t pullin’ out my pistol. Or my gun.” His masked face didn’t wink at Tony, god damn it, but it felt like he did. He tossed a battered manilla envelope on the table that clinked. “Have a look.”

Tony tipped the envelope out onto the table, even though he already knew what it was. There was a scrap of metal -- molecularly-aligned fully crystallized ultra high carbon iron, as a matter of fact -- two photographs and a scrap of paper.

Wade stuck out his tongue and wet his ruined lips. “Got a text two days ago, told me to go look for this. How the fuck did you know about that drop box?” He reached out, flipped the piece of metal over; it was matte black with half a red star painted on it.

Tony grunted and sipped his coffee again. “You told me about it.” He reached for the photographs.

One of them was of Jaime, still with both eyes and an unscarred face, but older than he was now, maybe seventeen or eighteen, with Wade’s arm around his neck, making a peace sign at the camera. On the back, a scrawl of handwriting. “See you at the aftermath. HJB”

The other picture was Jaime, older again, wearing an eyepatch, his head in Zoya’s lap as she brushed hair out of his face, and Wade, again, hanging upside down so that the top of his masked face was photobombing the couple.

Tony had found a whole datacrystal full of photographs and the fragment of Iron Soldier armor secreted in the future Jaime’s armor when he and Bruce had disassembled it.

“Who the fuck is this kid?”

Tony smirked into his coffee. “My son.”

Wilson appeared to consider this, as he got to his feet and opened the freezer to dig for more food. He came up with a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream and took a spoon from the drawer. “So, this is legit? Feels like a setup, Stark. I don’t like being set up.”

Tony shrugged. ‘If you _don’t_ want the money, feel free to go.”

Rubbing at his scarred jaw, Wilson frowned. “No, I rarely say no to money. But you gotta admit, this is high-end weird, even for me. This kid’s not real, Stark. I’ve seen your kids, they’re _children_.”

“Children grow up,” Tony pointed out. He sat back, mug still cradled in both hands. “And my other son can open portals in time, apparently. So about thirty years from now in a future that will never come to pass, you helped me out.” He nodded at the paper he hadn’t touched. “Easy money for you, now.”

Looking at Wade Wilson’s face was work; the man was like a mobile piece of horror art dedicated to smallpox, but he rolled the mask all the way up to stare at Tony, mouth open. He started to speak several times, stopped, then finally, “Did I earn it?”

“You got us where we needed to go, and brought us home again,” Tony said. “And you even weren’t a dick about the fact that I died. So yeah, you did.”

“And people say _I’m_ crazy,” Wilson said, shaking his head. He rolled his mask back down. “You make good on that IOU and I don’t owe you any more work for it. Good deal for me.” He pulled the piece of paper back and grabbed a pen, scribbling down a number. “Set it up in advance, next time, Stark, and I’ll give you a discount. This is steep, even for me.” Awkwardly, he patted Tony on the shoulder. “And say hi to your son, he grows up real pretty.”

Deadpool ducked under the kitchen table and removed a fucking landmine from the bottom of the wooden surface and tucked it in his bag. “Better to be safe, right? I’d hate for your eggs to go boom.”

Tony snorted. “One of these days, you’re going to remember that we’re the _good guys_. JARVIS, set up the funds transfer.”

Wilson laughed, short and high-pitched, a giggle that really, really didn’t suit him at all. “Good guys shoot at me _more_ often than bad guys do.”

“You should stop working for the bad guys, then,” Tony advised.

“I’ll take it under ass-visement.” He flipped Tony a little salute, walked out onto the balcony and jumped off the side. Several seconds later, Tony heard a very weak cry of, “What the shit, Parker!?”

Tony glanced toward the balcony, then decided it was better for his blood pressure if he didn’t go look. The coffee really wasn’t half-bad, though.

***

Rhodey hadn’t doubted. He had feared, but not doubted. He’d known Tony longer than any other living human being, at this point, and he _knew Tony_.

That hadn’t stopped his knees from buckling when the elevator doors opened and he saw Tony standing there waiting for him.

Barnes had been there, too, waiting. The whole time they’d all been talking, in fact, Barnes never left the room that Tony was in, and barely ever stopped touching him. Well, Rhodey knew how that felt, too.

“...so many new ideas,” Tony was telling Pepper, his eyes lit with enthusiasm. “Air and water filtration that are a hundred times better than anything currently on the market, and--”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Rhodey said. “Aren’t there, you know, _rules_ about bringing technology back from the future?”

Tony rolled his eyes and waved a hand. “C’mon, buttercup, you’ve gotta stop confusing science fiction with actual dimensional travel math. If there were actually hard rules about it, then it couldn’t happen, full stop.”

“You don’t think it’s maybe a little ethically uncertain, stealing someone else’s ideas and inventing them before they can?” Rhodey challenged.

“Honeybear, I’m pretty sure I was instrumental in inventing them anyway. Will be. Something like that.”

“But you don’t know for certain?” Pepper asked. She had that light in her eye that meant she was running half a dozen mental rabbits down to their holes. “Legally, we’re in the clear, obviously,” she mused, “but if someone else collaborated -- will collaborate? -- I’d like to know who, if for no other reason than it might well be someone we want in our R&D.” She considered it a moment longer, foot tapping.

“Tell you what,” Tony offered. “I’ll do a scrub of the latest journals and see if anyone’s published anything that’s on the right path. Then we can hire them, and I can invent the filters, and they can move on to bigger and better things.” He grinned triumphantly and threw up his arms, nearly smacking Rhodey in the face. “Everyone wins!”

“Do the review,” Pepper said, “and then we’ll see.”

“Yes!” Tony jumped up and did a ridiculous shimmy of a victory dance, then dragged Rhodey up off the couch and spun him around.

Rhodey snorted. “Get your boy under control, Barnes,” he complained, even though he couldn’t wipe the smile from his face.

“You’ve known him longer than I have, Colonel,” Barnes returned, amused. “Has anyone ever gotten him under control, _ever_?”

***

Charles Xavier’s School for the Gifted was a beautiful campus. Green, serene, and apt to break out in weird mutants chasing each other across campus while breathing fire or ice-surfing on free-forming frozen sky paths.

Rikki couldn’t decide if she absolutely loathed it, or loved it.

Logan, who taught history most of the time, and self-defense once a week or so, had just finished borrowing her for a few examples of extreme defense. Rikki was not the only fast healer -- several of the mutants had some sort of heal abilities -- but she was one of the few who’d already been trained in lethal combat.

Fighting with Logan was exhilarating. She was still riding that high when Kitty dashed over (phasing through the tree because she was too damn lazy to walk the extra six steps to go around it) to tell Rikki that her stepfather wanted to see her.

“Ug,” Rikki growled, wiping her hands on the towel around her neck. She sniffed at herself, then shrugged. If Tony wanted to talk to her that bad, he could deal with a little sweat. “Why’s he even here?”

“Wanted to talk to the Professor, I hear,” Kitty said, shrugging. “Something about the future that’s not going to happen. I wasn’t listening at all.”

Of course she wasn’t.

“Right. Where --”

Oh. There he was, on the far side of the lake.

“Need a ride?”

“God, no,” Rikki said. “Do I look like I’m in a hurry?” She grinned at Kitty, and then tipped a two fingered salute in her direction before sauntering off toward the far side of the lake.

Tony watched her for a moment, then turned his gaze out across the lake, apparently content to wait however long it was going to take. When she finally came within easy speaking distance, he glanced over at her, only briefly. “You were looking good out there,” he said by way of greeting.

“It’s a challenge,” she admitted, slightly unnerved by Tony’s calm demeanor. Her stepfather was not known for being placid. “He’s holding back, still. But it gives the kids something to aspire to. Is anything wrong at home?”

He smiled at her for that. “No, everything’s fine. How’s Ellie? I heard the hole in time was... unpleasant for her.”

Unpleasant. That was a word. A tiny, fractional part of what had happened, descriptively inadequate. “She’s always struggled with it,” Rikki said. She bent and picked up a few flat stones from the lake’s edge, skipping one across the water, where it bounced a few times before sinking. “And still, knowing the future, she’s never had her choices taken so utterly away before. She’s better, now. Sleeping again. But it left a mark.” Rikki hated that, had hated seeing the light in Ellie’s eyes faded out as she stared, desperately, at a future that she couldn’t change. Rikki couldn’t claim to understand it, but she knew a little bit about having your choices taken away. Yeah. She skipped another stone and counted the bounces.

Tony grimaced. “I’m sorry for that,” he said, and it even sounded sincere. Rikki wondered if it actually was. He sighed, and watched as she skipped another rock. “We all came down together,” he said. “Me and your dad and Jaime and Sasha. Thought we’d have dinner or something, once classes and our business is done. If you want. You can bring her along.”

“Real food would be nice,” Rikki said. “Scott does most of the cooking, here. I understand why Ellie wanted to take classes.” She slanted a quick look at her stepfather, studying his face. He seemed older, somehow, which made no sense, because only a week had passed for him, while her father had... Well, she wasn’t going to think about that, was she? “She should be out of her thing in another half hour. She and Dr. McCoy are doing some residual power testings with the unitards. She’s managed to burn two of them out, so far.”

“Yeah? Has he checked the ratio of--” Tony cut himself off with a quick shake of the head. “Sorry, professional hazard. Anyway, we came down to have Hank have a look at Sasha’s chemistry now that he’s manifested new and exciting powers, and I had a message for Professor Xavier.” He slanted a look at her, and fixed his gaze back on the far side of the lake. “And I have one for you, if you want it.”

Rikki raised an eyebrow. “A message. From the future?”

“From yourself, in fact,” Tony agreed. “I don’t know how much time you spend thinking about it -- if you could send, say, your ten-year-old self a message, what would it be? -- but forty-something-year-old you has apparently done a fair amount of consideration on the subject.”

Rikki groaned, eyeballing her stepfather. “God, I was older than you are.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, that was a little weird, I’m not going to lie. On the other hand, it wasn’t as weird as seeing myself pushing seventy.”

“I don’t ask Ellie, much,” Rikki said. “Sometimes. She’ll think about doing something, and get a glimpse and then change her mind. But we get a laugh out of what we didn’t do. So, you can thank her, a couple times now, that I haven’t shaved off your eyebrows.” She winged another stone over the lake’s glassy surface.

“I’ll remember to do that,” Tony said drily. “Do you want the message? It’s okay if you don’t. It’s not going to, say, cause the world to end or anything. It’ll wait until you want it. Or if you never do, that’s all right, too.”

Rikki glanced at him. “I know that you know that I opened all my Christmas presents that first year, right? JARVIS probably told you. Slit the tape, peeked inside, wrapped them back up again. I’m not going to sleep, like ever again, if you don’t cough it up.”

Tony laughed. “Yeah, okay. You know, JARVIS told us about your spying pretty much immediately. We almost went and stopped you. But we figured you were going to have to learn the hard way, about anticipation sometimes being a good thing.” He smiled nostalgically, though it had only been a few years ago. “I’m dragging my feet here because it’s... about me, in a way. So it’s a bit awkward.”

That seemed like her. No matter what the future was like, making things hard for Tony had to be a part of it. And she wanted to know, God, she wanted to know. What the actual fuck would she say to herself? What was she like, in this unknown, and now uncertain future. “Can you even, I mean, are you allowed to do that? Tell people about the future, in specifics? Seems kinda dangerous. Not that danger would ever stop you, I suppose.”

Tony grinned. “Well, I’ve already passed on messages to Steve, Jess, Bruce, and the Professor, and the world has not yet imploded from the paradox. I’m willing to risk it one more time.”

She didn’t clench her fists, because she’d promised her father that she wouldn’t throttle his husband, and she owed her father more than she could ever repay. But damn, Tony made it hard not to shake some sense into him sometimes. “What did I say, then?”

“She said, actually, that you should cut me some slack.” He made a face. “I swear, I’m not making fun of you or trying to take advantage of the situation, she really did say that. She said you should think about Charlotte, whoever that is.”

“Oh, god…” Her throat closed up, so tight she could barely breathe. She wet her lips, tried to speak. Nothing came out, so she coughed and tried again. “Shit.” She didn’t want Tony to see her like that. Vulnerable. And yet. She couldn’t imagine ever, ever confiding in anyone about that, so it must be true. And there was only one question that remained, which already had an answer and she had to have known it, or she wouldn’t have said anything. “Did he love me? The older you?”

She could almost feel his sidelong look. “Yes, of course.”

“Charlotte was one of the mothers,” she said, slowly. Hating to remember it. “She knew she was dying, knew that we were poison. I was assigned to guard her, to make sure she didn’t kill herself too early, deprive the experiment of another success. I didn’t want to care about her. We all knew what would happen. We’d seen it before. She should have hated me. She didn’t. I thought, at first, she was just trying to win me over, because she wanted something from me.” She sniffled, wiped her nose on her sleeve. “She’d seen him once. Father, I mean. They spoke, for a moment. She used to tell me about him. I don’t know if he remembers. I never asked. But… I don’t know. We became friends and she never asked me for anything that I couldn’t give her. When she died… well. It was hard.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony said, very softly.

“She loved me,” Rikki said. “And it took her dying for me to realize it. Realize that I’d wasted it. She was Sasha’s mother.” She didn’t know what to do; didn’t know how to reach out, to change things. Ellie wasn’t the only one who couldn’t see any other future, sometimes.

“You didn’t waste it,” Tony said. “However much it may feel like it. She knew, even if you didn’t, yet. And you’re giving Sasha all the love she could have hoped for.”

 _Ug_. Rikki wiped her eyes. “Future me must have thought you were worth it,” she said, tentatively. “And, as you know, I’m never wrong.”

“Of course not.” His amused smile faded. “Whatever future-you said, you don’t have to like me. It’s not something that can be forced, I know, even if you want to. And we usually manage to keep a lid on it, for Bucky’s sake. If that’s as far as it goes, then that’s okay. More people have hated me for worse reasons.”

Had to be genetic. There was just something about a Stark that made Barneses completely crazy. There was something about the way he stood there as if he was challenging her to keep hating him, and part of her _really_ wanted to do just that. The other part wanted to be something else and not live up (or live down) to his expectations. Which meant trying more than just get along because not getting along pissed her brothers off to no end and made Father roll his eyes. “You are impossible,” she said, finally. Which committed her to exactly nothing.

Tony looked at her then, his smile sharp. “I’ve been told that before,” he said. “But really, I’m just very improbable. Come on, let’s go inside. Your brothers are looking forward to seeing you, and I want to annoy Hank.”

***

JARVIS could not be bribed and Jaime was going to be in so much trouble as soon as everything came out. He’d managed to dodge awkward questions in the whole return and recovery. Dad had been too upset by the outcome of the Latveria rescue and Father had been too overjoyed at Dad’s return to really pay attention to anything more than the fact that Jaime had been aboard the Quinjet.

Jaime got home, took off his gauntlets and boots and shoved them under his bed.

And then had to live with the sickness and dread that clouded over his head and just waited for someone to find out, because eventually, someone was going to.

Every night, after Dad finished reading to Sasha (and yes, Jaime was still listening in, what of it?) Jaime would bend down and check under his bed to make sure his equipment was still there. Until one night it wasn’t.

78.4333 repeating percent likelihood that Dad had been waiting, to see if Jaime would confess before he was forced into it. Which Jaime hadn’t. He chewed at his lip. It was going to be even worse if he made Dad bring it up at breakfast. Right.

Jaime got up and grabbed his robe off the back of his chair, belting it around his waist. He took a few minutes to brush his hair down and delayed a little longer before slipping out of the suite he shared with his brother. At night, he’d usually take the staircase up to the penthouse -- his father was pretty insistent that Dad sleep on a regular basis -- but which direction the elevator travelled was going to tell him how bad it was going to be. “JARVIS, take me to Dad, please.”

JARVIS’s silence was deafening, but the elevator moved down. Workshop, then, and Jaime breathed out again, his lungs aching. Dad could sometimes be worked around; distracted or delayed. When Father took note, Jaime was usually _really_ in for it.  

He didn’t bother to knock on the ‘shop’s door. If Dad was expecting him, it would be open. Of course the door slid open at his touch. Jaime’s gaze darted around the shop, picking out his gauntlets and boots displayed neatly on his workbench. Dad was sitting on the edge of Jaime’s station, arms loose, but face turned attentively in Jaime’s direction.

And Father was standing with one hip against the fabricators, arms crossed over his chest, posture aching with disapproval.

Jaime slumped into the room, heart in his throat. He opened his mouth to say something -- anything -- “in my defense”, which was Dad’s go-to phrase. _Forgiveness is easier to get than permission_ , which was Aunt Jess’s excuse. He ran through every possible explanation, still struck dumb while his parents stood there, with patience which was obviously rapidly running out, and then finally came up with, “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Father opened his mouth, but Dad beat him to it.

“The Hagrid defense, is it?” he said, far too lightly. “No, hang on,” he told Father. “I want to hear what it is that he thinks he shouldn’t have done.” The eyebrow he lifted at Jaime suggested that the answer had better be well-considered.

God, where to _begin_? The list of his offenses was both long and ill-conceived. Bypassing JARVIS on a regular basis. Building and fabricating on his own. Constructing the beginnings of his own Iron Man suit. Using the partials without any testing whatsoever. Sneaking onto the Quinjet. Oh, back up a bit, he’d also learned to pilot the ‘jet without parental approval, hijacking the sim on the sly. Despite being critical to the rescue in Latveria, there were probably a half-dozen or more violations in that, including underage piloting without a license. Sneaking into Uncle Bruce’s lab to look at his own corpse, because he was pretty sure there were both paradox and practical rules about that that he’d broken, but he wasn’t sure they knew about that, and he didn’t really want to inform on himself. And then lying and hiding all the evidence. Yeah, he was in trouble. Capital T.

He could explain, but it was too much. “In summary,” Jaime started, taking a deep breath, “taking initiative without proper consideration for the safety of myself and others, breaking multiple protocols and regulations in the process. That my actions brought about desired results does not excuse them. And I should not have neglected to be forthcoming, even when no explanation was sought.” That would have sounded more adult if his voice hadn’t cracked about halfway through and the rest of it was delivered in a barely audible whisper.  

“Wow,” Dad said. “You obviously pay a lot more attention to my press releases than I do. That was _impressively_ nonspecific.”

So, they were going to be that way about it? Hmph. Jaime sighed. “I raided your files, built a partial suit, probably saved everyone’s lives in the process, and then didn’t tell you about it, okay? Happy now?” That… that was not going to help, Jaime knew. And while it took him longer to get around to it than his father or sister, Jaime wasn’t exactly a stranger to the Barnes temper, either. He seethed, all five feet of righteous indignation.

Dad’s expression didn’t change, which upped the odds on exactly _how_ mad he was, because he didn’t usually bother with the press-face in the Tower. “A little closer,” he agreed, still in that worryingly mild tone. He glanced at Father. “You want to go first?”

Father did that thing with his jaw, his teeth grinding audibly. “We gave you a week to come clean,” Father pointed out. “That was at least six days longer than you should have required. Or did you really think that we didn’t notice you on the Quinjet? In _armor_. Because in case you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of people in this Tower who pride themselves on their ability to spot little details. If you want to be subtle, try not copying your Dad’s colors, as a start.”

Oh, so now he was getting condescending advice disguised as a lecture, was he? Jaime squeezed his arms a little tighter over his chest. “Making it was theoretical,” he pointed out. “Using it was impulse. I ran the math. Just being on-scene added a fifteen percent increase for success.”

“That’s hardly the point!” Father snapped out, then closed his mouth very tightly, cheeks blazing with color. “You… pick it up before I say something I shouldn’t.” He waved a hand at Dad, movements all sharp and defined.

Dad looked between Jaime and Father, and then sighed, some of the tension dropping out of his shoulders. He picked up the left gauntlet and turned it over in his hands, absently testing the articulation and the joins. “Blueprints are theoretical,” he said. “Fabrication is... intent.” He looked up, catching Jaime’s eye. “We’re all grateful, that you were able to help. That you tipped the odds in our favor. And I know you’re eager to grow up. To be a force for good, to protect your family. But I just had to bury you” -- he waved vaguely in the direction of Bruce’s laboratory -- “and it would _kill me_ to have to do it again.”

Well, that just proved that this was a particular lesson he wasn’t going to learn, since the older him was still prone to throwing himself in the path of danger. Jaime glanced, very carefully, at both of his parents and didn’t say that, because he was, after all, _not_ an idiot. And he was pretty damn sure that, at least for a while, if he died, it would because both of his parents were already beyond helping him. Which wasn’t fair, and maybe it put too much burden on them, to expect Dad and Father to have to look out for him, but at the same time… “I’m not a soldier,” he said, defeated. Which meant exactly _nothing_ , because this wasn’t the first time he’d been forced to pick up a weapon and fight. “I’m not strong, like Rikki, and I’m not fast. I don’t heal as quick as Father. This --” he gestured at the boots  “-- _this_ is what I have. Fifty-three point eight percent chance that I will be in a danger zone again within six months. You know it. I know it. If this isn’t right, teach me to do it better. But I need to be able to protect myself.”

Dad grunted, and glanced at Father again. “You’re not wrong,” he admitted. “Something defensive, maybe...” He turned over the gauntlet and peered into it. “I think I still have the designs for RESCUE around somewhere...”

Father hid his face behind his hand. “I did something wrong in a past life,” he groaned. “Because nothing I did earned me having to live through Steve Rogers… twice.”

Dad caught Jaime’s eye and-- winked? He put the gauntlet down carefully. “At least this one is arming himself?” he tried. “He can be taught!” Dad crossed the space between them and pulled Father into a one-armed embrace, murmuring low into Father’s ear.

Father snarled something, of which Jaime caught only a few words and sighed about his lack of enhancements, then relented. “Conditions. Conditions, Stark-Barnes.” Father jabbed a finger in Jaime’s direction. “You… will absolutely, under no circumstances ever again interfere with JARVIS’s ability to monitor you. And no loopholes. Anything you’ve already put in place, I want out. No trap doors, no trojan horses. No hidden programs. Got it?”

Father scowled impressively and Jaime wasn’t quite able to repress his desire to flinch. “You’ll work with Tony, and not around him. And if I catch you doing something like this again without adequate supervision, I will absolutely… let your sister put you through six weeks of soldier training. Are we clear?”

Jaime snapped his heels together. “Clear, sir.” Terrified. But clear.

“Excellent,” Dad said. “First thing tomorrow, then, we’re going to start a new project. You’re going to show me all the little loops and backdoors you’ve used to subvert JARVIS, and we’re going to fix them. And then you’re going to do an in-depth review to make sure there aren’t any _other_ holes in his system. If you can hack in, then someone else sufficiently motivated can, too.”

“Nobody says hack anymore.” Jaime narrowed his eyes. “Seriously? _Code review_?” He couldn’t quite help the whine that tinged his tone. That was going to take _weeks_ of digging; JARVIS not being a tiny amount of programming by any standards. Well, at least Jaime could plug in, and not have to do a line-by. He wasn’t fooled; Dad was still pissed with him, even if he was going to allow Jaime to work on the suit. Eventually. “All right. Can I go now?”

“Get some sleep,” Father said. “Sounds like you’re going to need it.”

Jaime sighed, threw his hands up, and stomped out of the workshop. He knew he was acting just like Rikki when his sister was in a snit, and couldn’t help it. How was this even his life?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a smidge of headcanon...
> 
> Jaime: So when are you making me a suit, Dad?  
> Tony, Well, first I need to figure out how to amp up your healing abilities, because Future You had the damn suit embedded inside his skin, and I have NO idea how that worked.  
> Bucky. No, Tony.  
> Tony Well, we can start with something a little more basic, like a suitcase armor, did you like the color scheme or do you want something a little less Death Knight looking, JARVIS, warm up the fabricators, would you?  
> Bucky, NO, TONY.  
> Bucky: Can we wait until he’s past puberty before you start sending our son into battle? Please?  
> Jaime: But Papa, I was just in battle and you won because I helped!  
> Bucky: And you’re grounded for at least the next ten years for that.  
> Tony You know what they say about forgiveness, right, Jaime?...  
> Jaime, taking Tony’s hand: Easier to get than permission… so… workshop?  
> Tony: Workshop.


	19. Intersections in Real Time

> _John Sheridan: You just have to say "no, I won't" one more time than they can say "yes, you will"._

 

_2047 - Tony_

“...this footage from the recent incident in Atlanta, where you can clearly see Captain America leaping to shield Iron Man from falling debris, and here, later, where Iron Man carries Cap to safety only an instant before this explosion. They’re obviously keeping an eye on each other. The question on everyone’s mind is, of course: why! Stay tuned to find out what our on-the--”

The holovid cut off with a startled flicker. “I don’t know why you watch this trash,” Bucky complained, dropping onto the couch next to Tony.

“Because I’m a crotchety old man,” Tony said, “and yelling at the TV about ‘these kids today’ is a time-honored and traditional pastime.” He leaned into Bucky’s warmth; it seemed he always felt cold these days. Bucky obligingly wrapped an arm around Tony’s shoulders.

“No one even calls it teevee anymore,” Bucky pointed out. “Not even you.”

Tony shrugged and snuggled down. “Blah blah blah, bored now. Turn it back on; I want to see if they’ve decided Jaime and Danny are dating now, or what.”

“Really? They’re on that hobby horse again? And I wish they’d get over calling him by your name, that’s just rude. Also, bad for the branding.” Bucky tugged a blanket over Tony’s shoulders, but sighed and turned the holo back on. Not, Tony thought, that Danny wouldn’t smack the hell out of a reporter who would suggest that she was trying to steal her best friend’s man away. Danny took her mentorship with Captain America seriously, including the parts that had made Steve a PR nightmare for so long.

Tony tipped his head up to kiss Bucky’s jaw, a silent thanks. “It would help if he’d stop stealing my colors,” he pointed out. “Or maybe it’s just that there’s been an Iron Man and Captain America for decades, now, and so if Captain America’s around, obviously the person in the armor is Iron Man.” He shrugged. “We’ll sort it out eventually.”

Bucky rolled his eyes extravagantly. “Blind people. Iron Soldier uses totally different moves. Friday’s a little more daring than JARVIS was with you.” He nuzzled at Tony’s ear. “Come on, we need to start getting ready for the party.”

“Party’s not for like three hours,” Tony pointed out. “It doesn’t take that long to take a shower and change clothes.”

“It does if we’re doin’ it right,” Bucky said, grinning as he nipped at the edge of Tony’s ear.

“Still a crotchety old man,” Tony pointed out, even as he tipped his head for better access. “We fool around now, then I’m pretty much done for the day. You wouldn’t want to miss out on anniversary night sex, would you?”

“Wish you’d stop that,” Bucky sighed for probably the thousandth time. “You’re not old. You’ve got decades, at least.”

Tony grunted noncommittally. He had turned seventy last year, and even if it was a hale and fit seventy, the old jokes were going to happen; it was inevitable. He might as well be the one delivering them. But reminders of his mortality bothered the hell out of Bucky, who didn’t even look forty yet and was steadfastly avoiding the topic of Tony’s estate planning.

It was their anniversary; Tony didn’t want to fight about it. “Still only got the one round in me,” he said instead. At most. Sometimes he couldn’t even manage that, anymore.

Bucky tugged Tony onto his lap, hands careful with aging bones where once they’d been rough with eagerness. “Well, maybe _I’ll_ go a couple rounds and just tease the hell out of you,” he growled into Tony’s ear, low and hot. “Make sure you’ve got that round chambered for later, then.”

It wasn’t the searing, near-irresistible fire that it had been thirty years ago, but it was still a welcome heat that pooled at the base of his spine. “I might be convinced,” he said.

“Yeah?” Bucky said, pleased. “Good, ‘cause I want you somethin’ fierce. And then after, you can help me get dressed. Thirty years we been married, you’d think I’da learned to do up a tie at some point.”

“You are such a faker,” Tony said fondly, even as Bucky stood up, Tony cradled in his arms. Bucky could perfectly well tie his own tie. But they both liked it when Tony did it for him.

***

Tony had spent the entirety of his twenties and most of his thirties partying as if each drink was going to be his last. He’d been surrounded by the rich and the powerful and the pretty (and petty). A large party was nothing new. Not even as he’d stepped back from being an active Avenger and passed his burden on to his children. This party was pretty large; and what’s more, there was almost no one there that Tony didn’t absolutely love, that he was related to by blood or marriage or battle.

There were an astonishing number of children running around underfoot and as half a dozen of them were Barnes-Starks, there were any number of robots and android teddy bears accompanying some of them.

Jaime was the first of the kids to greet them as Tony and Bucky arrived. He had Maggie -- the youngest of the grandkids -- on his shoulders and Freddie (never Winifred, although sometimes she’d answer to Wini) mincing along behind them, trying hard to look all grown up in her half inch heels, even though her ankles were wobbling a bit. Freddie had changed her hair again since the last time Tony’d seen his granddaughter, all of ten days ago. A vainer child he’d never met; always doing something new with her “look”.

“Grampa!” She nearly knocked Tony over in her enthusiasm, her cotton-candy blue hair getting in her face. “You’re late. Like, even later than fashionably late. Did you get lost? We got you a present, you’re gonna love it. Did you see the news today? Daddy was on the news today!”

Tony couldn’t help smiling at the chatter. “It’s my party, I can’t be _late_ ,” he teased. “Besides we had to make sure we looked nice enough for you. And yes, I saw... well, I saw _some_ news. I saw your Daddy, and Danny, too.” He shot a grin at Jaime, whose eyes were already rolling.

“Ug.” Jaime rolled his eyes. “Gossips. The footage was pretty impressive, though. They got my best side.”

Margaret Romanov-Barnes used a couple of imperious gestures in Bucky's direction; Bucky had an annoying tendency to cart sweets around in his pocket that made him the favorite with every grandchild or grandniece in the vicinity. Even considering that, Maggie was spoiled. Unlike the majority of Barnes descendants, Maggie didn't have the signature look, but was instead a throwback to Maria Stark’s Italian heritage. It was good -- Jaime and Zoya’s other kids all looked as if they'd bypassed Zoya completely and just cloned off Bucky. Gorgeous as hell, but Tony liked seeing a little variety.

“If you’re fishing for compliments, go find your wife. Also, they called you Iron Man again. You really need to consider the black-and-green armor before your father has a conniption.”

“I'm not having a conniption,” Bucky protested. “No conniptions were had. It just works out better for the branding if the dolls--”

“Action figures.”

“Whatever. If they’re distinctive. So that kids want to collect them all,” Bucky finished. That was a crock of shit. Bucky didn't care about the sales or the naming rights. (Which had not in the least kept Bucky from owning an entire collection of the action figures in all of their endless varieties. He'd thought it was funny. And sometimes Tony would come across the more articulated dolls in various obscene or suggestive poses. The Iron Man dolls apparently had huge crushes on the Winter Soldier dolls.)

But what Bucky really cared about was that his son had _chosen_ to be the Iron Soldier, a name that Jaime had claimed for years not to deserve.

“No, no thank you,” Jaime said was saying and Tony tried harder to pay attention. “Zee already yelled at me twice for letting the damn Kree get the jump on us, again. Oh, and --” He squinted into the crowd. “-- Quill decided to crash the party, so Nebula’s here. Just so you’re warned.”

Tony harrumphed, but he didn’t protest. He hadn’t seen Quill for years. It’d be nice to catch up, even if he had to endure Nebula’s creepy stare. “Thanks for the warning.” He stretched up on his toes to blow a raspberry on Maggie’s cheek, then pretended to try to ruffle Freddie’s hair just to make her protest. “I’m going to go say hello to your wife, since you’ve apparently abandoned her with the boys.”

Jaime grinned. “The girls smell better. Just a fact of life.” He caught Tony’s arm and gave him a serious glance. “Rikki’s looking for you, by the way.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Tony promised. His stepdaughter had been away on a mission for -- he had to think about it -- almost six months. He’d begun to worry that she wouldn’t be home in time for the party.

With two Barnes-Stark boys in tow, Zoya would inevitably be by the food, but the dance floor was hopping as they passed it. Jessica and Steve were doing an athletic Lindy Hop to raucous cheers from onlookers. Kate Bishop and her long-time partner, America Chavez, were almost a match for them, with an energetic merengue.

Zoya, who’d started life with one lock of white hair in a sea of deep red and had gradually switched it all around until she was mostly gray at thirty, with a few locks of red left, was chatting with Charles Xavier, looking ancient and wizened in his high-tech floating chair. Erik Lehnsherr, who’d become an ally about fifteen years ago, was talking to no one, just looking off into the distance. He smiled, tight but friendly, when he saw Tony and Bucky approaching.

Tony tugged lightly on Bucky’s arm and nodded toward them, and they angled their path to intersect. “Charles, Erik, thanks for coming,” Tony said, shaking hands before pulling Zoya into a hug. “Hello, Chaos.”

“That’s Doctor Chaos to you, Uncle Tony,” she said, kissing his cheek gently. “Nice tie.” She straightened it, absently, adjusting Tony’s collar while she was at it. Zoya was fussy, that way. It was a side-effect of having so many children: she tended to mother the hell out of everyone.

She squinted up at his eyes, and frowned. “Have you been stimming again?”

Oops. Busted. Tony rounded his eyes at her. “I invented them, it doesn’t count. Besides, I had to,” he protested. “I’m going to be up late tonight, and my doctor told me to cut back on the coffee.”

“I am your doctor,” Zoya pointed out, heaving a great sigh. “And I told you to cut back on coffee because you don’t need the caffeine. It’s putting a strain on your heart.”

“Are you sure it’s the caffeine?” Tony tried. “It might just be the acid in the coffee. Heartburn, you know.” He didn’t look, but he could practically _feel_ Bucky’s eyes rolling.

“You are _impossible_ ,” Zoya complained. “Have you ever listened to anyone in your entire life?”

“Not so’s you’d know it,” Bucky put in, before Tony could answer, and grinned back at Tony’s wholly ineffective glare.

Zoya sighed. “We’ve talked about this, Uncle Tony.” She didn’t need to add the rest of it, and she was clearly wanting to, about how he wasn’t a young man anymore, and he needed to take care of himself, for reasons other than his own comfort. But she wouldn’t, because she didn’t want to upset Bucky. Which really sucked; he liked stimming. Tony didn’t have all that many bad habits left.

Charles continued the conversation that had been going before Tony and Bucky’s arrival: the mutants classifications act was up for a vote (again, because certain political parties could not seem to leave it alone). The table was filled with everyone from Tony (neither mutant nor enhanced at all) to Erik, a classified Omega-level mutant ( _homo superior superior_ , as he sometimes said). There’d been a push about five years ago for enhanced persons (like Bucky and Steve) to go back to being indentured by their original creators, but fortunately that had gotten shot down. Bucky watched, hand clenching from time to time. If that happened, since Hydra no longer existed, he would have been classified as Tony’s property (the arm upgrades had finally become necessary about seven years after they’d gotten married) and he’d had a lot to say at the time, very little of it fit for polite company.

“It’s a hit list, and that’s all it is,” Zoya said, waving around one of her french fries but not actually eating it. “It also completely disregards the differences between, say, the Inhumans, who were an extrasolar attack force but who still have free will from their origin creators, and someone like Danvers, who is part-alien. There’s nothing _unnatural_ about her abilities, they’re perfect normal -- for Kree.”

“There’s nothing unnatural about mutant abilities, either,” Charles said, soothingly. “We are simply the next step in human evolution. Some day, if we continue to interbreed as we have been, there will be few, if any, modern-day unenhanced humans left on the planet at all.”

“I should have liked to live to see that day,” Erik said, putting one hand down on Charles’s shoulder. “But the registration acts, and the states that have made marriage between mutants and non-mutants illegal--”

“That’s going down as soon as someone with standing gets it to the Supreme Court,” Tony said. “I’d take it up myself, but New York hasn’t been stupid enough to try to make our marriage illegal.”

Tony didn’t bother to point out that everyone at the table, and for the most part, everyone in the room was modified in some way, even if only with tech. Pepper Potts-Rhodes was probably around somewhere -- she’d grown harder to spot once she stopped coloring her hair -- and a few of the others were entirely unenhanced. But even Clint would have had to go on a registry, despite being as vanilla as ice-cream. He was well-trained ice cream, at least.

But once Bucky got into it -- and having once been indentured, he had strong, angry opinions -- he’d forget about other things. Like food. Tony got up and drafted one of his multitude of grandchildren who hadn’t yet realized what a registration act would mean to them, and went over to the buffet.

“Tony, hi. Happy anniversary,” Rikki said, looking up from where she was rather guiltily loading her plate with stuffed mushrooms.

“Hi, honey,” Tony said. He reached over her for a mushroom of his own. “I’ve heard you were looking for us.”

“You,” she said, succinctly. Rikki held up her fork, tipping it to one side, using the shiny surface as a mirror, checking her father’s location before rubbing at a non-existent spot with her thumb. “There’s a nice view off the veranda. Care to take a stroll with me?”

Tony smirked, just a little. “You’re a terrible spy, just so you know. But sure, by all means, let’s take in the view.” He offered Rikki his arm, mock-gallant. “And how’s your lovely wife?”

“Browless, again. We ran into a little trouble in Belarus. On the plus side, there’s an entire street-gang that won’t be having children,” she said. Once the door was closed behind them, she relaxed minutely. “I’ll have you know, I’m an excellent spy.” She bit at her lip for a moment, glancing at him. “Just… don’t want Father to know about this, just yet.”

Tony raised his eyebrows at her. He’d kept secrets aplenty for Jaime, and even a few for Sasha, but Rikki had never tried to keep anything from Bucky, that Tony knew of. “This sounds... dangerous,” he hazarded.

“Soldiers have discretion,” she said, rubbing the side of her nose. “I have something for you, but I don’t know if you actually want it. If you don’t, best that Father not find out.” Carefully, she reached into her purse -- she’d had to start carrying one a few years ago to keep an injection kit of TP508 handy, because Ellie’s radiation was occasionally problematic, even for Rikki’s super-soldier healing -- and brought out a metal case about the size of a pair of sunglasses. She sat the case down on the porch’s railing.

Tony studied it for a moment without touching it. “What is it?”

“Phoenix serum,” Rikki said, easily enough, leaning against the rail to watch the door.

Tony didn’t sway, didn’t let his knees give out under him, but he did have to rest one hand on the railing and lean into it a little harder than usual. “I thought it was all destroyed,” he said, conscious of the waver in his voice. “How-- I probably don’t want to know, do I?”

Rikki smirked. “Found Crossbones. Boiled him alive for a while. He was… very forthcoming.”

“Jesus, he’s still knocking around?” Tony huffed a hard breath. “You’re sure it’s the real thing?”

Rikki nodded. “We had to be careful, but I had an old contact that owed me a favor. She ran a spectral and chem analysis. She’s quite certain that I have no further claim on her now, which makes her very happy. She’s been dreading me darkening her doorstep for about twenty years.”

“With Team Nuclear Winter hanging over her head, I can only imagine.” Tony picked up the case and turned it over in his hands. Such a small thing, to contain so much. “Is it enough?”

“Should be,” Rikki said. “You’ll have to let Ellie nuke you, to activate it. And the results… may be unpredictable. But the healing factor, that’s one of the base things. Everyone gets that. There’s never been a case with the serums that failed to deliver on the healing. It should give you at least another fifty years. And it’ll probably roll you back a bit. _Maybe_. Ellie can’t see, until you decide to use it.”

“Multiple applications, I remember that much,” Tony mused. “You’ve got the full protocols, I assume.”

“We do. But, Tony… you need to think about it. It could go wrong, you know that. Some people don’t take to it, at all. And, you know we don’t talk about it, but there’s a certain… weariness. Father’s a hundred and thirty years old. Death’s not always the enemy. Sometimes it’s a kindness.”

Tony leaned in and kissed her forehead. “You think I don’t know that? I’m not going to make a decision like this without giving it some consideration,” he promised. “And then talking to Bucky, as well.”

Rikki pressed her lips together. “You’re sure? You know if he thinks it’s possible, he’s going to want to insist. He’s been getting desperate, these last few years.”

“I know,” Tony sighed. “But he loves me. If I truly didn’t want it... We’d fight about it, for certain, but he wouldn’t force it on me.” He looked out over the railing. “Of course, I’m going to have to take into consideration the fact that he... may not survive me. Which throws some weight into keeping us both around a little longer.” The risks weren’t anything to sneeze at, either, though. He could already see that he wouldn’t be sleeping much, tonight.

Rikki shifted a little. “I didn’t even tell him what we were headed out there for,” she confessed. “Didn’t want to get his hopes up. Or have him breathing down my neck, quite frankly. Six doses, once every other month, but you should see results almost immediately. Like, right after Ellie zots you, honestly.”

“Well, not telling him what you were fishing for, that was a good decision,” Tony chuckled. Bucky might not force unwanted longevity on Tony, but he’d sure as hell fight tooth and nail to give Tony the option. Tony slipped the case into his inner breast pocket. “I’ll sleep on it, and let you know.”

“It wasn’t entirely for you,” she said, looking down at her spread fingers. “Crossbones was a blight, and one that I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to remove for quite some time. I owed him. Or maybe he owed me. We’re all square, now, though.” She gave Tony a shark-like smile that didn’t speak of pleasantries.

“You’re settling all kinds of accounts,” Tony said lightly, though he nodded slow approval. “One might almost think _you_ were the crotchety old person here.”

Rikki snorted. “I’ve been crotchety since I was twelve,” she said. “Crossbones showed up on my radar again about three years ago. This… this was just a happy accident. He might have been planning to bribe me with it. He had to know, eventually, I would come for him. Just hard to arrange for an accident while he was still in prison. Father wouldn’t have liked that.”

“No. No, he wouldn’t,” Tony agreed. “If only because that meant he wouldn’t get a chance.” He put his arm around her waist. “Come on, let’s go back in. It’s chilly out here, and I haven’t said hello to everyone yet. Sasha hasn’t even made his usual grand entrance, yet.”

Rikki put an arm around Tony, resting her hand on the small of his back. She didn’t put out the same amount of heat that her father did, but she was still a furnace, comparatively. “One big benefit,” she said, “is that you’d never be cold again.”

Tony grinned at her. “I’m not sure that’s a benefit. Then where’s my excuse to snuggle up to my favorite super-soldiers?”

“Maybe just because you love us?” Rikki suggested lightly.

“Pff, what would be the fun in _that_?” Tony pushed the door open and extravagantly gestured his step-daughter back into the light and warmth of the party.

***

After thirty years together, one might think that the two of them would stop trying to out-stubborn each other. One would be wrong about that.

Bucky lay, sprawled out and taking over more than half the bed as was his normal habit, counting breaths, not sleeping but pretending and knowing that Tony probably knew that he was faking it. In the meanwhile, Tony was doing his best cat imitation, moving every few minutes as he fought sleep. Despite what Zoya had said, it wasn’t the stims. Bucky had seen Tony at every possible level of caffeination below LD50. This wasn’t caffeine.

And it wasn’t insomnia; Tony had that, too. Had suffered (both quietly and otherwise) from it for most of his life, but when that was the problem, he gave up relatively quickly and put himself to work, disliking the waste of time that sleeplessness cost him.

Finally, Bucky gave in and opened his eyes. “You gonna tell me what’s botherin’ you, baby?”

Tony stilled, and was quiet for long enough that Bucky was starting to think he wouldn’t answer when he said, “Rikki found a full course of Phoenix serum. She gave it to me.”

Bucky froze, like someone had shoved him back in a cryo-chamber. The blood in his veins turned to icy slurry, his heart gave a few stuttered, shocked beats. He’d learned a lot in a hundred and thirty years, but that hope could taste so much like terror wasn’t a thing he’d known before now. The lump in his throat was the size of a battleship. Didn’t matter, there was no air in his lungs to say anything with anyway.

Of course it was Rikki; his children were nothing if not desperate to prove themselves, even now. Well, not Sav. That boy was resting on the laurels of saving the world once already. He was the most relaxed, but the other two… If there’d been anyone who could have -- who even _would_ have -- it would be Rikki.

The ice in his chest thawed, letting his heart beat again, painful. “Tony?” He didn’t know what he was asking, throwing out a million questions and hopes and fears and desperate notions in a single word. He’d been ignoring it, deliberately, obstinately, with great fervor, pretending that Tony wasn’t getting older, every day. It didn’t matter, and he knew that Tony knew that. They didn’t talk about it. Hell, Bucky refused to talk about it. Talk wouldn’t change anything. But this… this could change _everything_.

Tony rolled over, carefully slow, to face Bucky, a rueful smile on his lips. He cupped Bucky’s cheek in his hand. “She thought I shouldn’t tell you about it,” he confided.

Right. His family was conspiring to murder him. His chest ached. There was only one reason he could think that Rikki wouldn’t want him to know about it; if Tony chose not to undergo the regimen, Bucky would be haunted by it. Knowing that there was a solution out there and not being able to take advantage of it. Bucky rubbed at his shoulder, the scars pulling around the metal arm, even after so long. “I can see that,” he said, cautiously. “I…” He didn’t even know what to say. “What are your thoughts?”   

“It’s not a sure thing,” Tony said. “If it doesn’t take, you’re going to lose me a lot faster than if I don’t try it at all. And even if it does, the possible side effects are... sobering. What if I turn out looking like Grimm? Or Schmidt?”

Well, that was an unpleasant thought. Ben wasn’t so bad, but Schmidt had featured in a few too many of Bucky’s nightmares to be easily dismissed as a concern. It wasn’t likely; there’d been some spectacular failures with the original serum, of which Schmidt was the flagship example, but the Phoenix enhanciles had been less severe with their mistakes. Rumlow had some pretty strange nerve damage, but that might have been because his program had been interrupted by the Triskelion coming down on his head. “You just had to bring up Red Skull? Really?” Bucky shuddered, and it wasn’t entirely faked.

Tony shrugged apologetically. “Why do you think it’s keeping me awake? And there’s the... personality magnification effect, too. I’m not always the best person; I don’t know if...” He sighed. “It’s not as easy a decision as I thought it would be, baby.”

Well, that was nonsense. Under most circumstances, Bucky didn’t argue with his husband about the complete and total wrong handle that Tony had on his own personality. They’d had that argument before, and listening to Tony tick off his bad points like it was a fucking contest just made Bucky sick and never seemed to change anything. “So, you get enhanced; you put a serious dent in the world’s coffee supply and you have more sex than eight normal people. I think I can live with that.” He ran a teasing hand up Tony’s arm. “Might be nice for you to wear me out for a change.”

Tony scoffed, but he wriggled a little closer to kiss Bucky’s chin. “I’m not sure that’s even possible,” he said, “serum or not.” And at least the air wasn’t quite so heavy around them as Tony tucked himself up against Bucky’s chest. “You’d let me take the risks?”

Bucky took a deep breath, the smell of Tony’s hair a comfort. “Have I ever been able to _stop_ you from taking risks?” What was the worst that could happen? Bucky sighed. He probably shouldn’t have thought that, because Jesus _fucking_ Christ, his brain could come up with some pretty bad worst-case scenarios. Really bad? Tony could go full on Johann Schmidt and have to be put down. It wasn’t likely, but… “Shit.”

Tony laughed a little, just a touch desperately. “Yeah.”

The Phoenix mix wasn’t as bad, though. The risks had been lowered a lot; Hydra had made dozens of Phoenix soldiers. Even now, decades after Hydra had been wiped off the map and even the remaining clusters were mostly gone, the Phoenix soldiers popped up once in a while. Most of them were petty mercenaries with troop support, but they’d been trouble. How much of that was the serum and how much was the result of the men chosen for the program? Hard to say. Rapists and murderers and thieves and torturers. But Tony had _never_ been like that, nothing like that. And, over the years, there’d been a few Phoenix soldiers who’d come in, who’d surrendered and wanted to do something good with their lives.

The benefits, oh, God, the _benefits_. He could have Tony, could not be forced to watch on a daily basis as Tony _aged_. What would happen, in a few years, if Tony turned up like Peggy. Could Bucky bear it, watching the spark that made Tony who he was slip away? But it was selfish, really. Horribly selfish. Put Tony through a risk like that, just so Bucky didn’t have to be alone? Maybe they shouldn’t… Bucky took a deep breath, filled his lungs. He would do the right thing for once in his life. Except that wasn’t what came out of his mouth, and he couldn’t take the words back once he said them. “I think you should try.” God damn it.

All the tension went out of Tony’s body. “That’s what I was leaning toward,” he said. “I just... didn’t know if I could risk doing that to you. If it went wrong.”

“If it goes terribly wrong, I’ll take care of it,” Bucky said, an oath. Tony wouldn’t want… he could manage it. If he had to. “And anything else, we can figure it out. Together.”

“Together,” Tony agreed. “We’ll call Rikki and Elz in the morning, then.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, softly. “Let’s do that, then.” He kissed Tony’s mouth, once, twice, barely pressing his lips to Tony’s. Everything was going to be just fine.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, that's the end. _The. END._
> 
> We posted the first chapter of Winter is Coming almost exactly one year ago (one year ago tomorrow, actually), so this seems like a wonderfully fortuitous time to declare the Communal Kitchen closed.
> 
> Well. Sort of. We're marking the series "complete", but if you've learned anything about us over the last year, it's that neither of us can leave well enough alone. We already have a couple of additional little snippets and smuts to share -- like, what happens when Tony takes the Phoenix serum? Plus a rather glorious smut prompt that someone sent to tisfan on tumblr. So we're not _done_. But this is the last of the Big Plotty Stories, and this is (more or less) our one-year anniversary for this 'verse, and this... is what we're calling
> 
> THE END.
> 
> We'd like to thank ALL OUR READERS for reading, commenting, hitting that Kudos button, and generally just sticking with us for so long. We love each and every one of you.

**Author's Note:**

> The chapter titles and quotes come from an old television show, _Babylon 5_ , which has one of the best long-running time travel plots ever. The chapter titles are relevant to the plot of the story in that chapter, but the quotes at the beginning of each chapter are _not_ necessarily relevant; they're just quotes from that particular episode. (Tisfan sometimes gets carried away, and Dragons indulges her.)
> 
> We're on tumblr; please come follow us ([27dragons](http://27dragons.tumblr.com/) | [tisfan](http://tisfan.tumblr.com/ask/)) and fill our inboxes with screaming about all things Marvel!


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